Playgound misfits, Freefrom game for the GuardITP

[Baxter190]

This shall be the OP for the free form game for the Playgournd Misfits, Imperial Guard Regiment in the Playground.

For the thread for the Regiment, http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=96259

Commissar Baxter was smiling. If that thought alone wasn’t scary, it was a smile few where live to recognize today. It wasn’t the smile he had worn, when he performed his now famous, “Blaze of glory run.” No, that day he wore a smile with a a bit of a blood solemn look, as if he knew he was going to die and wanted to go out fighting. The imperial guard unit he was with that day were outnumbered three to one that day by the head of the Ork wagh, where the Commissar had been ordered to try and take out the Ork war boss. Unfortunately, they were out numbered, and were quickly driven back and surrounded. Refusing to go out without a fight, Baxter had stood up, and exclaimed,
“Come one you ****ing P******, we’re going on a blaze of glory run!” With that said, he jumped over there cover, and charged the war boss. For the first few seconds, everyone was still firing, none of the shoots hitting him. However, eventually everyone stopped shooting, as the lone human ran all out towards the obviously much larger, and much more powerful ork war boss and his elite guard. As all watched dumbfounded, he ran close enough to swing his chain sword, leaped, stepped on an ork nob to use as a jumping point, and jumped. While he was in the air, he was higher up than the war boss, and brought his chain sword upon his neck, and cleanly severed his head. Yet again, all watched the human in all his audacity, pull the head of the fallen ork, and exclaim, “For the emperor!” As he was still here today, it was obvious he was successful.

Nor was it the smile of wanton blood lust, such as the day when he “Promoted” the colonel to his current position. That day, the previous colonel had just ordered a retreat from a large hive city to a more” secure position, deeper inside the tunnels. However, Baxter knew what he was suggesting was heresy. The Dark Eldar had engaged them, and were trying to desecrate the emperor’s must glorious temple! They had the eldar dangerously outnumbered, and if they would make one last charge, they would break them! Convinced the colonel was heretic for his plan, he shot the man on the spot when he exclaimed retreat. As all the guardsmen looked on in aw, Baxter grabbed his friends Lt. Cabal, and yelled, “This is your new leader.1 Hew shall lead us into battle, and victory, not your heretic previous colonel. Now, unto Glory!” Needless to say, he was still alive and won the battle.


[No, it the smile only his own, personal unit would know, as well as a number of close friends. It was the smile he wore when he had been accepted into the Commissar academy, when he was saved from almost certain death in close combat by a certain sniper’s fire from almost five miles away. It was the smile he had when the had a seen a certain psyker melt the face off of a heretic zealot, and when a bone’ead had tipped over a eldar tank because he though his lucky penny was under it. It was one that a pair of guardsmen that had survived his blaze of glory run had seen when they told him it was the awesome thing they had ever seen. It was the smile of utmost glee. It was the smile of man who stood in front a Baneblade tank ordered by his grandfather three generations ago, and was just finished, fresh from the blessign ceremony. Turning to Colonel Cabal beside him, Commissar Baxter said, “Think Goblin’s gonna like it?”

[chiasaur11]

Negotiations about to commence, sir.

And we both know what we mean by "negotiations", I hope.

[Fri]

Meanwhile, Imperial Guard #247, vanguard infantryman (that is the fancy name of meatshield), of Baxter's Bloody Bastards and Head Laundrymaster of Emperor's Most Holy Cleaning Service of Playground's Misfits stood with some of the new recruits in the kitchen.

"Some said that Logistic a.k.a kitchen service is where they put the misfits of the misfits. That's true, but not by what you think. Kitchen service is one of the most prestigious place where you can be assigned.

Some said that imperial guard's life is sacrifice, we must sacrifice our life for the emperor, for other guards, for our commsiars, for keeping the heretics and xenos and whatnot from touching our most-holy-and-damn-hard-to-move artillery.

So why don't you want to sacrifice yourself by throwing yourself into the line of vegetables for the life of our regiments!

Oh, and that's said, we do have 20% death ratio for newbies in the kitchen duty. Boy, the meats do pack some resistance."

[Krrth]

*Wincing at the explosions, Guardsman First Class Krrth (don't ask...let's just leave it at his mother was really, really drunk when she named him) grumbled under his breath.*


I've got to account for all that crap, but do they care? No....they think tank shells grow on trees or something. At least I'm not counting bullets this time. I never thought I'd be happy we have Lazguns.

[Foeofthelance]

Foeofthelance looked at the bastardized...thing sitting in front of him. Neatly lined up to either side of it were Basilisk Heavy Artillery tanks, their cannons pointed to the heavens, as if eager to rain down death on the Emperor's enemies. Standing in front of the Basilisks were their crews, all standing rigidly at attention.

Then there was the abomination in front of him. It was clearly based on Xeno technology, that much was obvious. It was larger than anything else in his unit, and was clearly designed to fly. The lines of the plane were sleek, cleaner than anything he had seen in the Imperial forces. But what really confused him were the two Earthshaker cannons that had somehow been mounted under the wings. He could see the complicated mechanisms to adjust their firing angle, and what might be a way to reload them in midair, but....

"WHERE IN THE EMPEROR'S NAME DID THIS COME FROM?" And much more importantly, "AND WHERE ARE MY FRAKKING BASILISKS THOSE TUBES CAME OFF OF?!?!"

"Sir, those are spare tubes, I believe," the trooper in front of the Thing answered. He and his crew were doing everything they could not to crack out the grins on their faces.

Before Foe could say anything else, a large truck pulled up next to him. The troopers inside of it began to quickly unload stacks of crates. Foe jogged over, curious as to this newest development. All of the boxes had the same stenciled labels.

"DICTIONARYDADE"

What was in the Emperor's Name was this?

[warty goblin]

Tank Commander Goblin sat comfortably in his jumpseat, the upper part of his torso sticking out of the turret hatch, and gazed down the imposing length of the Leman Russ' battle cannon. He preferred the sheer firepower and armored might of a Baneblade, but peace negotiations came with certain conditions, and one of those was 'no super heavy tanks.' Ah well, his first action had been in a Leman Russ. Shortly thereafter he'd won his Commander's chevrons in that very same tank.

That had been quite a few years ago now, he'd only been a gunner then. The bestial orks had been making a major incursion, and the half strength 224th Armor Company had been tasked with holding a minor road leading to a major city and shrine of the Emperor. Nobody had expected more than a few boyz to come that way, which was why only three vehicles were protecting it. Of the three only the single Leman Russ was a proper tank, the Chimera and Hellhound were respectable fighting machines, but no substitute for armored might. But nobody was expecting much trouble.

Everyone had been quite surprised therefor when a few hundred howling orks had crested the hill, spraying bullets everywhere, catching the company completely off guard. One of squad of guardsmen assigned to the Chimera had been relieving himself, and was the first to see the oncoming horde. He'd come tearing back to the cluster of vehicles about a hundred feet ahead of the foremost ork, and hopped right up on the back of the Leman Russ. The tank's commander was a bit slow in making up his mind to batten down the top hatch, at least until a big shoota round changed it for him, Removed most of it actually, they'd had to bury him with a basket under the cloth covering his face to make it look like he still had a head. The loader, a twitchy little fellow, froze right up, leaving then Gunner Goblin to stuff the first shell that he could reach into the breech and fire it straight into the oncoming horde. It had, by ill chance, been an armor piercing round and just blew a hole into a couple of orks, but it still slowed 'em down a bit. Goblin had then shouted up to the soldier clinging to the back of the turret to get on the rooftop stubber and shoot until either he ran out of ammunition or died, whichever came first.

The next shell Goblin had grabbed had been high explosive, thankfully, and had blown a considerable hole in the front of the enemy lines, giving the driver time to scramble into position and fire up the hull lascannon. The Hellhound had opened fire, literally, in just the nick of time, burning down a wave of orks about to scramble onto the still immobilized Russ, and then they were off, charging straight into the beasts, crushing them under the treads and riddling them with bolterfire. Under Goblin's somewhat extemporaneous command, they had driven back and forth in front of the Chimera and 'hound, keeping the orks from reaching the thinner armor. Fifteen minutes later, the artillery company over the next ridge finally figured out what was going on and started raining basilisk shells into the orks, and after that it was a mop up.

Three days later Goblin had earned Commander officially by rallying another armor company to keep a bunch of heretics from fleeing the city and spreading panic. It hadn't been pretty, but if they wouldn't listen to reason, they'd certainly listened to the battle cannon.


Now, on this alien world, all he had to do was wait, out here in the cover of the forest. Sooner or later his Commissar would issue the order, and then he'd get to shoot him some more xenos. He liked shooting xenos.

[Kane]

"Tiny thing, isn't it?" Gunner 1st Class Kane said, examining the shells and battle cannon of the Leman Russ.

"It's-!" one of the sponson gunners began.

"Yes, I know it's the main gun, I just like the *Baneblade much better! It's bigger and-" Gunner Kane was cut off by a loud clang as he attempted to straighten up. "there's room in there!" he finished, clutching his head, and turning the final words into a makeshift expletive.

"Haven't you ever been in a Leman Russ before?" the same sponson gunner asked.

"Yes, but only for a week. Get oriented, then I got promoted up. Someone decided that with previous experience, they wanted such a gunner for their command tank." Turning his head carefully, he raised his voice, "Thanks, Commander Goblin!"

"How'd you get kicked out of the Imperial Navy anyway?"

"Well... I wish it made for interesting telling, but really I just found that thin line between getting a CO upset enough to get rid of you, yet not justifiable for execution, or really, any punishment at all." A moment of thought ensued, at which point Kane resumed, "Really, kind of lucky. Keeps him from paying me off, keeps me from getting offed by a less-scrupulous subordinate trying to do him a favor. Er... As leader of a Vulture flight, I was kind of invited to his weekly card games, and, well.... If you ever feel like losing your pay for the next thirty years, I'd like to play cards with you some time. Course it have to be something big for me to try what I did to Captain Bizan..."

"What'd you do?"

"Ask me when we have a table and some cards. Neither in here, I think. Plus, you know, no money riding on it. If I'm going to show you a trick you can use to break the bank on any world we're stationed on, I want something for it."

[Innis Cabal]

Commander Cabal sat at his desk. Sure, not his dream position at the moment, but his men were good hard "Negotiators" and could handle themselves. All he had to do was sit back, and ready himself for any…hard treatments to come.

Good men were hard to come by. Men who’d die next to you because they were told to? Ya…those were harder.

[Weezer]

Corporal Weezer silently waved his team into position, waiting for them to obtain cover before finding it himself. Hidden deep in a thicket, he sights in on the negotiations, seeing his commissar approaching the foul grey-skinned xeno. scanning the treenlines he makes out the comforting sight of Commander Goblin's tank waiting for the command to fire. Panning back to the clearing he sights in on the unclean, patiently awaiting the order to cleanse the xeno scum.

[chiasaur11]

Lt. Chiasaur was...
nervous.

The Tau may be the most idealistic and likely negotiate bunch of xenos, but they still were unlikely to surrender unconditionally. Or at all.

And that meant that he'd be on the frontline when it all went down.

He wondered why he made this stupid plan in the first place, and desperately hoped he could steal a Barracuda before the Russes started firing.

[warty goblin]

"You're welcome!" Commander Goblin replied to his gunner. Really, that man's talents had been wasted in the Navy. Back in his days as a gunner, Goblin had been good, in the top third of his gun laying class, but Gunner Kane was...a natural. He pointed the gun, and the shells just seemed to go where he wanted them to, no worries about range, drop, terrain or windage.

Sighing, Commander Goblin went through his pre-battle check for the dozenth time. The spare vision blocks were at hand, the firing port in the turret was clear, the laspistol ready in its holster on the turret wall next to him, half a dozen frag grenades rattled in their box below it. The commander's gunsight was clean and calibrated, and the operations map was tapped up to the side of the turret. Yes, all it was now was a matter of waiting.

Waiting was the hard part though, always was. Once everything got going there almost wasn't time for fear, just instinct, training and the will to serve the Emperor to the last. Before that though he just had to sit and chunter, thinking through all the eventualities he was prepared for, and trying not to think of how many he wasn't. What if the Tau had seen through the plan? What if they had heavy armor somewhere in the woods as well, waiting? With skill Commander Goblin knew he'd be able to take on any of the lighter vehicles the Tau threw at him, Stingrays, Devilfish, they were just a battlecannon shot or two from being so much melting scrap, burning fuel and detonating ammunition. The broadside suits were a little more worrisome, they were small enough to take effective cover, and those railguns could quite possibly do significant damage, particularly to the treads or rear armor.

Commander Goblin had once been in a tank which had taken a Chaos lascannon to the a tread. Melted the whole assembly and burned the left sponson gunner clean in half. Fortunately the hull autocannon had cut that particular cultist into nice even sized pieces before he'd managed a second shot, and the beam hadn't touched off the fuel or ammo. Still, the following battle had been an exceptionally long one, unable to move and stuck on the front lines with rockets exploding everywhere and those Emperor-cursed Khornites screaming about blood. They'd gotten their blood though, oh yes. Power armor was tough, but a battle cannon didn't notice it all that much. Why the first berzerker wasn't even enough to touch off the HE shell, he'd just sort of disintegrated around it.

That had been the last time Commander Goblin had commanded a Russ. He'd gotten the Baneblade gig right after that and never looked back. Sure the 'blade might take most of a city block to turn around, but with that much firepower, if there wasn't space to make the turn, you could make the space, and when it came to laying waste to the worst the scum of an entire galaxy could throw at a person, there wasn't anything to beat it. With all the guns blazing, it would take somebody more crazed than a khornite ork to even think of getting close, and between the main cannon and the demolisher, there wasn't anyplace safe in a mile of the thing.

Unfortunately he wasn't in a Baneblade now, and he really wished he was. He could handle the Devilfish and the Stingrays, even the Broadsides. It was the Hammerheads that worried him the most. They outgunned the Russ, and were more maneuverable to boot. Fortunately they didn't have the armor to match. If he could get the drop on them, Commander Goblin would offer good odds that it wasn't his tank that'd be beaten into flaming ruin first. If he didn't get the drop, well, he'd burn that bridge when he came to it.

[thorgrim29]

Meanwhile, in the Tau city, Sergent Thorgrim of the 29th veteran squad was priming the last Krak mine around the Tau battledome, the idea was to keep any units currently in the structure in it, while not completely destroying the valuable building filled with xeno tech. Most of the time, he preferred good old imperial technology, like his beloved hellgun and chainsword, but even he had to admit some of those tau rifles were pretty amazing. His 25 vets stood by his side with their lean, scarred faces, many with augmetic replacements to lost limbs, good men all, who he would trust to battle any foe the Imperium's foes threw their way. He also had under his charge two squads of regular infantry, who he hoped would be up to the distasteful task he had for them. He spoke to the regulars first:

-Alright newbies, you get the easy job, according to intel only the "fire caste" are actual fighters, and most of those on duty are either out there to meed with our "traders" or in the battle dome I'm about to blow up. Your job is to go in their living quarters and kill them all, no quarter, no surrender for the xeno scum. Only one exception, if you see an ethereal, try to capture it, but don't take unnecessary risks to do so, basically if you see a Tau not in their ugly orange armor that seems to be leading troops, odds are it's an ethereal. So ransack through the living quarters, set a few fires if you can manage it, and join me and my squad in the armory. Alright go, get in position, attack when the city goes boom, and please try not to get noticed.

As the troopers go to their position, he motions his squad closer:

-Alright lads, you know the drill, the armory is probably the best defended part of town right now, but if everything goes according to plan the basilisks should shell the entrance a bit before we go in, but you know the artillery boys, so be ready for a hard fight. We go in fast, and we go in hard. If we come across battlesuits, let the plasma gunners handle it, otherwise, it's weapons free. With the battledome down and this building in our control, the battle will be much more easier for the rest of the misfits, so give all you've got, and remember, the Emperor protects those who serve Him well, so kick some xeno arse.

As the soldiers go about their pre-battle rituals, the Sarge waits for the signal, a seemingly random series of static on his vox unit.

[KnightDisciple]

Veteran Trooper Knight Disciple looked nervous.
"Don't know how much I like this, Sarge. Feel nervous-like. Too many newbies."
He pauses to hawk a loogie on the ground.
"Ah well. Just point me where you need me, Sarge."

[Lord Mancow]

As Air Marshal Mancow gazed over the dark airfield he saw, with a spark of happiness, the eastern sky begin to brighten. He smiled, this was one of those smiles that you can wait your entire life to see and never see it. The men of the 24th Luftwaffe knew that this smile meant it was time to support the negotiations in the Tau city. No one* had ever asked the Generalleutnant how he and his 25 Luftwaffe divisions had come to be in every battle involving the misfits.

"It's quite a tale," The Generalleutnant told his men. He would tell them this story before every battle.

The Dark Angels had originally come to the backwater planet that he had called home to recruit new marines for service. They'd asked him and his brother to join the Chapter. His brother had accepted but Mancow had refused, saying, "I don't want to be in you Dark Angels strange little regiment! I wish to join the Navy and gain command of my own Luftwaffe and I'll show you the real meaning of a space fortress!" Before walking off before their librarians fried his brain. He was scorned by his family when he returned and as a result took to the streets.

He became experienced at looking after himself and at the age of 15 lied about his age and joined the navy. From there he had made his way to fighter command and at the age of just 21 took control of his own division which he named the Luftwaffe. He and his Luftwaffe had been fighting in the battle of Tallernam Prime when they had encountere some strange Chaos Marines. The Dark Angels had then shown up and attacked these Marines that they called the Unforgiving before turning on the Navy in a cover-up, much like the Grey Knights do when a Daemon invasion occurs. All the senior officers were killed in the opening engagement and so Squadron commander Mancow took control and lead a daring break out operation. During the escape run his cruiser was assaulted by the Dark Angels and he was forced to fight his brother, who was now a full battle-brother of the Chapter and managed to hit him in the legs and escape but he didn't have the strength to kill his brother.

He and what were left of the force he was with then proceeded to join the Misfits and have a ongoing rivalry with the Dark Angels. This has reached the point where they now intend to construct their own asteroid super-fortress for use by the Misfits.

His second in command then came up to him and said through his vox-caster,"The Generalleutnant's Luftwaffe! I sure didn't expect that!"
The Generalleutnant's forces then called back, "No one expects the Generalleutnant's Luftwaffe!" before climbing into their Thunderbolts and Marauders and beginning to launch.
The Generalleutnant smiled to himself,"These negotiations shall be fun" he thought . As he climbed into his Black, red and yellow thunderbolt with it's Imperial Aquillia on the side.

The negotiations had begun.

*who wasn't a part of the regiment**
**yes, even the Inquistion

[Zenos]

Sentinel Pilot Karhaha sat in his sentinel, near a building, overlooking a pair of charred kroot corpses and trying to clean off kroot bits from his vehicles bladed feet. He climbed back into the cockpit and turned on the vox.
"Hello? This is sentinel unit #070899, requesting repair unit. Immobilized sentinel leg. A xenos got in a good hit on a joint"

[chiasaur11]

Lt. Chiasaur cleared his throat. "Sir, I, on the behalf of the Imperial guard, wish to begin negotiations. Firstly..."

He then noticed a slight disturbance in the distance. It looked to be a good deal of Tau firepower... dinging off a sentinel.

Negotiations, it seemed, needed to commence a good deal more quickly.

He quietly muttered something about trigger happy recruits and quickly began running for the nearest transport.

[Moonlitrebel]

Trooper Illiya Moon sat on a rotted stump, his trusty flamer resting by his side. As he looked up, he noticed two men walking towards him. One was Petroz, a man who had fought many battles alongside Illiya in the name of the Emperor. The other man Illiya had seen around, but did not know. He was a new recruit, sent in two weeks ago. Illiya couldn't be bothered to find out his name. He'd probably be dead within the month anyway.

“Why did we have to be the ones left in gakking rearguard!?” the newcomer asked.
“Command decided they needed to hold some troops in reserve in case 'negotiations' went awry.” Illiya answered nonchalantly.
“The only time we'll see battle is in mop up duty!” the boy complained. “I want to send some of those Xenos scum to hell!”

Illiya just grunted. To be honest, he liked being held back in reserve. It was safer. To be frank, he didnt trust his squad mates. Petroz, he trusted with his life, but the rest of them were fresh meat, straight out of training. And the fact of the matter was, no matter how well trained, rookies made mistakes. Mistakes that cost lives. He took a lho stick out of his pocket and lit it up. It was his fifth this day.

“Do you ever not smoke?” the lad asked, “I swear, I've never seen you without one of those in your mouth!”
“I have!” Petroz chimed in, “But thats only when hes sleeping. Or drinkin'.”
Illiya silenced his old friend with an icy glare. “The day I go to the Emperor's pearly gates is the day ill stop smoking.”
“But dont you know how dangerous they are?” the recruit asked.
“Dangerous? You wanna know dangerous!?” Illiya roared. “have you ever seen a “nid!?”
“Of course ive seen pictures.... “the lad stammered.
“No, not pictures. Have you ever had one so close to you, you can smell its breath?”
“No.”
“Well, when you have the privilege of having that happen., you can tell me how dangerous my little habit is. Until then, just turn around and leave me alone.”
Embarrased, the recruit turned away, but not before muttering, “Those sticks will be the death of you....”
Illiya sat back, inhaled the narcotic deeply, and smiled. He would be a lucky man indeed, if these were the death of him.

[warty goblin]

With a sigh, Commander Goblin straightened up as much as was possible in the cramped Russ. "OK men, it's time."

"You all know what to do. Remember, the enemy most likely doesn't know we're coming, and will probably be unprepared. This does not mean we are out of danger though. It is said that only in death does one's service to the Emperor stop, and I plan to go on serving the Emperor for a good few years yet." That got a few chuckles, it always did.

"Our boys on the ground are hitting a xeno armory over there. They've got the artillery, the air wing, and the new air wing of the artillery all supporting 'em directly, so I guess they don't need us."

"But they need a secure route to evac through along with all the xeno weapons they've taken. That means this road here, and that's where we come in. Our job is simple, we're gonna drive up to that road and frag any alien scum who set foot in it, wait for the infantry to fall back, and then cover their retreat. And when I say any alien, I mean any alien, make the ones with guns top priority, but shoot 'em all. This is a negotiation after all, and negotiations mean one thing, mass alien casualties."

"I said our job is simple, don't mean it's easy. These aliens might be a bunch of blue communist space cows, but that doesn't mean they don't know how to fight. I say we hit 'em hard and we hit 'em fast, just the way the Emperor intended armor to be used when he invented the tank."

"Now, for the Guard, for loot, and above all, FOR THE IMPERIUM!"

With that, the tank was off, crashing through brush, spraying dirt. They reached the road unopposed, sponson guns blazing and civilian transports erupting in flames. From inside the armored copula, Commander Goblin scanned the scene, looking for anything that could be an enemy. So far so good...no, that was not good.

"Stingray gunships, two of 'em, bearing fifteen points left. Move to face and-"
The tank shuddered as a group of missiles burst on the forward glacis, rocking backwards on its treads. "-Gunner Kane, fire at will!"

[Innis Cabal]

Commander Cabal had heard of the disturbince, gunning it for the nearest Chimera bay. He made a swift motion at the rest of his command squad as they piled into the large vehicle

"I see its time to get going boys! For new weapons!"

The rest of the squad cheered as the transport ripped away to the front lines.

[WychWeird]

WychWeird turned to the servitor whose lower face had been replaced with a voxcaster and listened to the incoming transmission, "Hello? This is sentinel unit #070899, requesting repair unit. Immobilized sentinel leg. A xenos got in a good hit on a joint." He sighed as he turned to the Sentinel servitors and nodded to them.

"Inform #070899 that I shall personally accompany the repair crew," He said to what he called the Voxitor, "And arrange a rhino to deliver me to #070899's location."

As the servitors moved to the loading bay, WychWeird annoited his servo-enhanced arm with some rare oil brought from Mars, "May the Machine God protect protect that sentinel and keep it's spirit intact." He thought, "We can always get another Guardsman."

[Krrth]

"Hello? This is sentinel unit #070899, requesting repair unit. Immobilized sentinel leg. A xenos got in a good hit on a joint."


.....Great, more costs. I really hope we can get some decent parts from this. Negotiation in force. Or is that with force. Something like that. Anyways....time to get out the "salvage" inventory book.

[Foeofthelance]

The dull roar of explosions echoed into the Basilisks' emplacement as the firing began in the distance, and Foe shook his head. They were supposed to tell him when they were gonna kick off the fight! They always forgot to tell the artillery. He was probably going to get some complaints about some idiot walking under his barrage at that. No matter how often he pointed it out or brought it up in staff meetings, the other commanders just never got around to telling their men that his Earthshaker rounds had automatic right of way on the field of battle.

"Alright men, the bell is up!" He yelled, getting a roar of approval from the men. "You know what to do, just as we've drilled. Tubes one through three, give 'em some queasy stomachs with the pounders. Four and five, you got the smokes. Six?" He paused and turned around to the crates that had just been delivered. He didn't know what a Dictionarydade round was, but if they had been delivered to him he was darn well gonna use 'em. "Six, you get the special delivery. I want an after action on how well it handles! Hop to it men!"

The men gave another cheer as they turned around to their vehicles and mounted up. It took less than a minute before the Basilisk boomed, sending the Emperor's special compliments to the preloaded Tau positions. Foe knew those positions were probably wrong, but someone was going to be having a bad day, and it might as well not be him.

"Sir, what about us?" asked the the crew leader standing in front of the Thing.

Foe considered it for a moment. The Earthshakers had been mounted on the undersides of the wings, so there was no way to elevate them up high enough to fire them. Which meant they would have to be above the target in order to work... Ah well. If he was in the air, then maybe he wouldn't be there if the Tau broke through the lines. "I've got the stick," he finally announced. "You lot get on the guns. We'll see how well this works out."

The cockpit to the Thing had been left open, and he discovered that someone had conveniently replaced the original seat with a much more comfortable leather upholstered one. That was nice of whom ever was responsible. There were three buttons arranged in a line on his right armrest, which he took to be options of somesort. They might have remembered to make the seat suitable for humans, but the modifiers had forgotten to put labels on things. There was also a stick between his legs, which be grabbed hold of with one hand. He thumbed the vox with the other. "Every one ready?"

"Aye commander!" came the enthusiastic response.

He smashed the green button, and a voice spoke in an alien tongue. Nothing else happened. So he smashed the buttong again. The voice spoke, but again, nothing else. So he smashed it again. Green meant go, didn't it?

There was a loud thump from beneath him, and then the craft rocketed skyward at an impossibly fast rate. He grabbed the stick out of reflex, and the craft rushed forward like an angry bull. Pulling back the nose rose, and the craft slowed, till it was hovering in midair. Further experiments proved that left was left, and right was right. Well, at least he could fly the thing. He shoved the stick as far forward as it could go, and the craft dashed through the air.

"Sir, we're closing on the enemy tanks position!" one of the gunners called over the comnet.

"Gun one, on your mark, fire!" Foe ordered. There was a muffled boom from under the left wing as the Earthshaker roared...

The men responsible for modifiying the Thing had forgotten one specific fact. A Basilisk's main gun had monstrous recoil. Normally this recil was absorbed through the treads, which in turn passed it onto the planet. And strong as the shock was, most planets could take such a hit without noticing. (There had been a few incidents here and there which had led to accidental discoveries of sinkholes and tunnel networks, but those were ignored for all practical purposes.) The Thing, however, was not connected to the ground.

The recoil of the gun shoved the left wing up suddenly, causing the strange hybrid craft to go tumbling through the air...

[Zenos]

Karhaha was sitting in the cockpit, fingering his laspistol. Then he saw several brown-skinned xenos breaking from cover. He activated the vox and said "More Kroot! I'll try to hold, but I don't think I can keep fighting for long."
He swivelled the sentinel's head around, training the heavy flamer on the Kroot mercenaries. They were getting closer, he snapped off a shot with his laspistol at one of the foul xenos, and it was satisfying that it dropped with one arm less. Then the kroot shot back, and Karhaha ducked beneath the cover of the cockpit.

[warty goblin]

Commander Goblin grinned in triumph as Gunner Kane's second shell hit the last of the Stingrays dead center. The armor piercing core blew a two inch hole into the flimsy xeno armor, but failed to overpenetrate. Perfect, the superheated core would now ricochet around the interior of the vehicle, cutting the crew to paste and setting things afire. Sure enough, the gunship lurched to one side, and then blew in half as the fuel detonated.
"That's the last of 'em, well done crew!" Goblin shouted over the thunder of the tank wheeling to face back up the road.

"Hello? This is sentinel unit #070899, requesting repair unit. Immobilized sentinel leg. A xenos got in a good hit on a joint."

Goblin grimaced, that just figured. He hated it when a vehicle got stranded. Still he had to hold the road, there wasn't anything else for it. Not that it looked like the road really needed held anymore. The gutted ruins of a dozen or more civilian vehicles littered the ground, smoldering. Here and there amid the wreckage of the two Stingrays, the propellant of some stray missile caught fire and the weapon flew into the sky with a whine before exploding overhead, fireworks to celebrate the defeat of the xeno.

"More Kroot! I'll try to hold, but I don't think I can keep fighting for long."

That tore it. There wasn't anything on the road left to shoot, and he would eat ork steak before he would leave a perfectly good sentinel and pilot to the tender mercy of a bunch of genetic freaks. "Driver, move us to Grid Coordinate... 13 by 53, and step on it."

The driver looked like he was going to object, that the coordinates were outside of their operational area, but then he remembered the location the distress call had come from, and also that the commander had a laspistol up there. The tank lurched forwards, gathering speed.

They rounded a corner, tracks sliding out, and slammed headlong into a small army of Fire Warriors, some still scrambling to put on helmets or grab pulse rifles. Before he'd even had time to issue the order, Goblin heard the sponson bolters and hull autocannon open fire as the tank lurching onwards, crushing aliens in the treads. In a moment they were through, and Goblin glanced back at the shattered formation, only to see with some consternation a Fire Warrior clamber up onto the back of the Russ, and pull a plasma grenade out of his belt.

Before the xeno scum had time to do something clever involving the grenade and the turret ring, Goblin seized the laspistol and jammed it out of the firing port on the rear of the turret, letting the xeno have it full blast. It was a good thing it was close range, otherwise the armor might have kept the las blast out. As it was the Fire Warrior lost most of his right thigh, and rolled off the back of the tank, apparently rethinking his martial carrier. "Keep going," Goblin ordered the driver, "we're nearly there."

[thorgrim29]

-Well, that was typical
Mutters sargent thorgrim as the first shots ring out.

-Well then lads, look like no one deigned to signal us, so the party is already started, and we've got some xeno to kill, so lets go, for the emperor!

A few bewildered fire warriors were already coming out of the battle dome when he pushed the big red button on his jury rigged detonator, and they were disintegrated before they even knew what the hell was happening. The explosion threw some of the vets on the ground, and left the other with an unpleasant ringing in their ears, but they charged as one man nonetheless. In a matter of moments, the five Tau warriors on guard duty were dead, the imperials having sustained only minor injuries. The sargent took the emitting end of the squad voxcaster and spoke a few brief sentences into it:

-Squad 29 has penetrated the armory, are preparing to go in, repeat, squad 29 is in the armory.

Cautiously, the vets entered the building proper, half of them had holstered their hellguns and were revving their shiny new chainswords, laspistol in the other hand, the other half were prepared to splatter any xeno scum they came across.

[Krrth]

-Squad 29 has penetrated the armory, are preparing to go in, repeat, squad 29 is in the armory.


Squad 29, make sure you get a good count of everything. We wouldn't want something to "fall off" the books.

[Foeofthelance]

Foe let the plane/tank roll over, turning into the roll until the plane righted itself. "I think Im gonna be sick!" someone whined over the vox.

"Quiet out there!" Foe ordered. "No getting sick onboard the Thing! You vomit, you clean it!" Grumbling to himself, he switched over the general communications network. No one had contacted him for a fire salvo, but that was not a surprise. It was generally left to him to determine where the best way to spend his shells.

"Hello? This is sentinel unit #070899, requesting repair unit. Immobilized sentinel leg. A xenos got in a good hit on a joint." Well, that sounded like a request to him. Enemy unit trapped behind enemy lines? Definitely a task for firesupport until rescue units could arrive.

"This is Basilisk Six, all units, fire on Grid Coordinates 13/53, say again, fire on grid coordinates 13/53. Fire Plan Back Scratch, repeat, Fire Plan Back Scratch. On my mark..."

He steered the Thing over to the area he was looking at. Actually, being up here wasn't so bad. If anything, at least he knew how to call for fire, something which half the FNGs in the regiment didn't. Probably why they had such a high turn over rate... Down below he could see a solitary Leeman Russ charging into a pack of Kroot and Firewarriors, which had almost surrounded a lone sentinel, bowed on one knee. He switched over to the squad net for the men on the Thing. "Gun One, Gun Two, synchronized fire. Walk it from the Leeman back to the Sentinel, then over the hill. On my mark..." He switch back to the general net. "All Basilisk units, FIRE!"

The Thing bucked beneath him, jumping in the air as both Earthshaker Cannons fired vertically down. It jumped again and again as the crews rapidly reloaded and fired. He managed to get a good look out the window as th ground in front of the Leeman exploded in a fountain of dirt, then another pair of explosions as they shells walked to the enemy...

[warty goblin]

"Holy Horus in Hell, what in the name of the Emperor was that?" Somebody shouted up from the depths of the main combat compartment, as overhead an aircraft screamed by, and the ground and kroot in front of the Russ exploded into sprays of dirt and less pleasant things.

"That," said Commander Goblin laconically, 'is the artillery's new air wing."

[chiasaur11]

Great.

The Tau double cross us and bring an army to a diplomatic meeting.

If we hadn't done the same thing, I'd be insulted.

Lt. Chiasaur desperately dashed into a Tau Orca, hoping his armor, stolen on an early "diplomatic mission" would allow him to pass as the enemy for long enough to be alone in the pilot seat. After that, well, an Orca should be able too...

He then spotted a Manta. The plan was rapidly beginning to revise itself. The Orca could land in that thing's docking bay... And who would be paranoid enough to guard against their own dropship pilots?

Well, he* would, but he very much hoped the Tau wouldn't.

*And his commander would, and his commander's commander would, and most of the troops under him would... heavy weapons units with a tendency towards custom weapons tend to be either very skittish, very good planners, or very dead.

[Foeofthelance]

Foe used the time the gunners needed to reload to circle the battlefield, trying to evaluate the damge they had done. The Leman Russ tank was slowly advancing up a brown road, occasionally dipping up and down as it entered and exited the craters left behind. Its goal was the lone Sentinel, kneeling on a circle of green in a ring of tossed dirt. At the height they were flying at, he couldn't see the body parts from slain xenos, but he didn't need to. Below a grey mass of kroots was advancing much more slowly towards the Sentinel. 'What is with those guys?' Foe thought as the Guard tank began to take the Tau soldiers under fire. 'Its just a Sentinel! Why sic most of their army on it?'

As the thought occured to him, Foe's eyes narrowed. He had spent too much time in the company of Commander Warty, Commander Cabal, and Commissar Baxter for his mind to not assume the Guard unit was being led into a trap. Those three could confuse a rock into getting up and walking away if they wanted to. Their paranoia and cunning was, fortunately for the others in the Regiment, at least those who survived, infectious.

Foe broke his pattern just as the first smoke round went off in the middle of the kroot. White phosphorous detonated, burning those unlucky enough to be too close to the shells when they went off, spilling white smoke onto the battlefield. Figuring he couldn't do anything if he couldn't see the ground, he decided to go check out the rest of the action.

After a few minutes flying, he came across what might have been a Tau airfield. Circling, he could see troops loading into Orcas, at least one of which looked like it was going to try docking with the Manta the Tau had brought to carry the gear the Misfits were supposed to be 'negotiating' for. Something puzzled him though. Where were the Barracudas and other fighters that were supposed to be guarding the treasure?

His thoughts were cutoff as a blue blaze of rail cannon rounds flashed past his cockpit, narrowly missing the Thing. 'Oh. There they are.' He twisted the stick over, turning the Thing about to face the new threat...

[Kane]

"Good thing you told me. I was about to put a round through it!" Gunner Kane commented, before, upon reflection, amending, "Course, that's if I could elevate the gun that high, this isn't a hydra after all."

"You nailed those two gunships pretty nicely." the loader commented. Communications were being carried out by Vox bead, as it was far too loud inside the Russ for anyone to communicate with only their voice. The roar of the engine was already deafening, let alone the periodic thunderclap of the cannon.

"They weren't any good. They had to have been profoundly stupid to come in that low. One was hemmed in by the buildings on the street, that was a really bad move; All I had to do was aim up or down; he couldn't juke."

"Xenos; Firewarriors; 12 o'clock. Coming out of that building down there." Warty reported from the cupola.

"Already dead, just don't know it. Load me up a H-E. Ready to double it." Kane replied, concluding with instructions to the loader.

Armed firewarriors were pouring out of the building, probably a barracks or command post. Swinging the turret into line, Kane fired, putting the shell into the wall, a few feet to the left of the doorway. The shell exploded, blasting the xenos into oblivion, with the luckier ones 'merely' being flung several feet through the air.

"Loaded!" Kane heard in his voxbead, with a loud clang heralding the second shell being slammed home.

"On the way!" Kane replied, swinging the turret a degree, and firing again. This shot hit farther back into building, and exploded again. The xenos architecture was strong, possibly stronger than the elegant arches and spires of Imperial buildings. But not strong enough. A few moments later, the upper stories of the building ended their teetering and collapsed into the street.

[Lord Mancow]

"Hello? This is sentinel unit #070899, requesting repair unit. Immobilized sentinel leg. A xenos got in a good hit on a joint." Mancow heard through his voxcaster as he switched to unit channel and ordered,"Squad 1, on my 6 we're headed to co-ordinates 13,52 to help a sentinel. Marauder squads 1 through 5 are to fly cover for the infantry while thunderbolt squads 2 through 6 are to look for enemy aircraft and engage Targets of Opportunity. All units GO GO GO!"

As he approached the sentinel he and his squad saw a small army of Xenos being taken on by a Russ. Suddenly the area near the Russ exploded into dirt and as the Air Marshal looked up he saw what he could only describe as a Thing. It had the body of a barracuda and a pair of earthshaker cannons mounted underneath it. "Uh, squads, stay away from the artillery's newest toy please 'cause I don't want to loss any men to an accidents. Fly cover for it instead."

He then watched as the Thing flew on toward what revealed itself to be a Tau airfield and prepared to launch a bombardment upon the unfortunate Xenos stationed there. He then watched as fire poured through the air about it from a group of barracudas.

"All thunderbolts to co-ords 14,73! We've got a whole lotta bogies!"

"Sir! Research team Alpha reporting in! We've secured the manta's cockpit and are ready for exfiltration sir!"

"Alpha, launch the manta once the Xenos are all distracted and then get outta there and back to the airfield!"

"Yes Sir!"

He then proceeded to dive into the enemy force and shoot down a bogey with a hellfire missile.

[Zenos]

The kroot were trying to crawl through an exposed storm drain to get closer to his sentinel. Pilot Krahaha gleerfully turned the heavy flamer at the xenos and let forth a blast of flame. Half a dozen kroot were roasted. Unfortunately, there were at least two dozen more. He snapped off a shot with his laspistol before ducking back into the cover of the cockpit. A shot penetrated the armour of the vehicle and hit the side of his seat. That had been dangerously close.

[Destro_Yersul]

Guardsman Destro ducked past the sentinel, grinning to himself and holding his plasmagun carefully. The last one had blown a hole in the armoury, and he had been lucky to get clear on time. He was even luckier to get a replacement. Plasmaguns weren't easy to come by. Fortunately for him, they always went to the only men crazy enough to carry one, and Guardsman Destro was one such man.

He swung the gun around, aiming at the swarm of kroot. The barrel flashed and three of the bird-like xenos puffed into vapour. Destro chuckled quietly and let the chamber recycle. There were plenty more targets where those came from.

[KnightDisciple]

A pair of Kroot lept at Vet Squad 29...
Or tried to, and were blown to bits by Trooper Knight's careful fire.
"Easy pickings. Friggin' xenos are too stupid, sometimes."
Before the stealthsuit Tau squad could get into proper position behind them, he spun and blasted them back, killing one and winging the other two, forcing them to cover.
"Don't worry bout these boys, sarge, go on and wrap things up in here."

[Zenos]

Krahaha leaned out of the cockpit, saying, "Bloody good timing mate." At the same time, he was pressing the holy button to to unload the whole supply of promitheum on the Kroot. He looked over his shoulder at where the blast had went, four kroot were dead. Now there were... Krahaha did the math, only seventeen of the xenos left trying to take the sentinel.

[WychWeird]

The Rhino driver frequently checked the tactical overlay for enemies and followed the Leman Russ at a distance, "Nearly there, Sir! Krahaha doing a great job in keeping the dirty Xenos at bay and the tac-map says there's reinforcements on the way."

"That is good, I do so hate having to perform the Ritual of Purification and the Rite of Purging unnecessarily. Stop as close to the sentinel as possible as..."

"By the Emperor's Giant Foot! What is that Thing?" shouted the driver as a shadow flickered over the Rhino. He glanced at the tac-map and shouted again, "It's got a Misfit ident, Sir! But it looks like a bastardised Tau frame!" The driver raced up to the Sentinel, slewing the vehicle round to protect the occupants from fire as they dismounted.

"It would seem as if the Machine God has blessed the Misfits, would it not?" WychWeird keyed the exit and motioned the servitors out, "Still, who am I but the Machine God's humble servant? I do hope the leather seat is comfortable." WychWeird strode down the ramp, his tabard flapping around his legs. The driver looked a little confused, the TechPriest's face was mostly covered by an impassive mask but he could have sworn by the glint in WychWeird's eyes that he was laughing.

[Moonlitrebel]

Trooper Moon, along with most of his squad mates, sat near the nearest voxcaster he could find, listening to the carnage going on. In the distance he could hear earthshaker cannons unloading the Emporor's righteous fury on the filthy xenos. How he loved that sound. As long as they were firing away from him, that is.

"Hello? This is sentinel unit #070899, requesting repair unit. Immobilized sentinel leg. A xenos got in a good hit on a joint!"

He said a quick prayer for the soldier in the sentinel, and then said a prayer of his own. Because with his luck, he was sure he'd get orders from up above to advance soon....

[chiasaur11]

Lt. Chiasaur looked around the Manta's cockpit.

The raid had gone well. Control of a massive Tau gunship, a cargo bay full of valuable technology, and the bulk of the enemy crew none the wiser. Well, they'd figure out soon enough.

"Lock down the cargo bay, and prepare to fly back home. I figure everyone's able to handle..."

He paused. "On the other hand... a little shattering of Xeno morale never hurt."

[Zenos]

"The damage is in the left leg, Tech-Adept." Krahaha aimed at a kroot again, supporting himself on the Sentinel, and blew it's head off.

[Destro_Yersul]

"Yep. Wanna watch me blow off that filthy Xenos' left leg?" Guardsman Destro aims his plasmagun at the nearest warrior, and taps the trigger. Not only does this get the aliens left leg, it gets the rest of him and one of his friends as well. "Oops. That was a bit high."

Guardsman Destro laughs. He hasn't had this much fun since that time he got to kill a chaos dreadnought all by himself.

[Foeofthelance]

Foe grimaced as he watched the oncoming Barracuda's barrel down on him. Their autocannons were blazing, and all he could see for a few moments were the blazing streaks of their tracers rushing towards him. The Earthshaker under the right wing took a shot at something down on the ground, throwing the Thing out of the path of the oncoming fire in an uncontrolled tumble.

Foe hadn't been expecting it, but by now he had learned how to adjust for when his gunners took things into their own hands. He quickly got the airship righted, already shaking his head to clear the dizziness. He looked up just in time to see a trio of Imperial Thunderbolts come diving out of the blue into the heart of the Barracuda formation, fire streaking out from under their wings. The lead Barracuda exploded in an angry fireball, and as if on cue the others broke up their formation to scatter. The Thunderbolts split up, each taking on their own target.

Foe heeled the Thing over into a sharp turn, unexpectedly bringing him face to face with an oncoming Barracuda. Once more he had the rare privilege of seeing autocannon fire come racing in towards him. There was a loud crack as a round broke through the wind screen, and he felt something blow past his head before the round spent itself in the seat behind him. Foe blinked at the near miss, his hand automatically feeling along the top of his head to make sure that he actually was still alive.

His hand crawled up his forehead to his hat, and the tips of his fingers found a small break in the fabric. Confused, he whipped it off his head and looked down at it. There, almost dead center through the star that marked him as an Officer in the Guard, was a slightly lopsided hole. It took a moment for the fact to register before reality hit him. They had shot his HAT! His mother had sewn his HAT! He had had it as long as he had been in the Guard! (Though the star was a few years younger than the rest of it.) HOW DARE THEY SHOOT HIS HAT!!!

If it was a fight the Barracuda wanted, it was a fight the Thing would give it! He jammed the stick as far as it would go, forcing both aircraft into a dangerous game of Protochicken. "Gunners, fire!" he bellowed.

Below the wings, both Earthshaker Cannons fired in synch. The combined recoil was nearly enough to tear the wings off the Thing, but in a testament to Xeno craftmanship they held. It was, however, enough to pull the Thing into an abbreviated half loop as the hand of physics shoved the craft backwards. Foe accelerated into it, turning it into a full loop just in time to see the effects of their fire.

Earthshaker rounds had not been designed for dogfights. They were, in fact, designed for killing large amounts of infantry in a very short amount of time. To accomplish this, they were designed around an almost even mix of High Explosives and ballbearings. To make sure this exploded on time, it was given a complicated gryoscopic fuse. Built for very long range engagements, they were also given a contact fuse, as in order to get them to their maximum distance, the rounds were often fired at speeds that were just shy of escape velocity.

The unsuspecting Barracuda had actually been well inside point blank range for the Earthshakers. On the ground, the tubes would have had to be at vertical to even attempt a shot at such a close range, and most likely would have killed the firing Basilisk as well. So there wasn't enough time for the gyroscopes to arm even the contact fuses. Instead the two fifty pound rounds simply slammed striaght into and then through the airframe of the Barracuda. It's wings sheared off, and the craft fell into a forward dive as it began its crash. The rounds, still not having detonated, passed through the antigravity wake of the Barracuda's engines, and were given a slight burst of accelerating. This was enough to spin up the gyroscopes, and the fuses armed. Since the nose of each of the shells had been crushed pretty much on impact, they also went off.

The twin Earthshaker rounds exploded just shy of simoultanously, one having hit an extra bolt on the way through. Twenty pounds of ball bearings, ten pounds per shell, burst into a sphere of destruction, engulfing the rear of the falling Barracuda.

BOOM.

[WychWeird]

WychWeird nodded to Krahaha and arranged his servitors in the correct arrangement for the Lay of Field Repair and caused them to start the hymn. As the humming, whirring and clanking commenced he strode to the sentinel and examined the leg, opening a small port and jacking into the sentinel's systems directly.

As the TechPriest started work, the Voxitor relayed a message to the surrounding Misfits, "#Diagnosis begun, triage assessment imminent.#"

The Enginseer lovingly caressed the sentinel's leg as he caused various pumps and valves to reconfigure to minimise the hydraulic loss. He looked to a sentinel which moved closer, deploying an armoured pipeline which he coupled to a hydraulic point in the port. "May the Machine God's life flow swiftly in your veins," He prayed as the servitor started the transfusion. WychWeird bent closer to the knee joint and examined the damage caused by the xeno shooting.

"#Do not move or attempt to move the sentinel at this time.#" The Voxitor's mechanical voice broadcast, "Triage assessment confirms that sentinel may be restored to glory providing recovery to workshop is initiated.#"

Across the open ground, one of the remaining Tau ran towards the sentinel, gun firing wildly, his intention to stop the Misfits and end their need to defend the vehicle. He dropped to one knee and fired his rail-gun at the repair crew, hitting a sentinel square in the chest.

"#Update: required materials have been made available for field repairs.#"

[Innis Cabal]

Commander Cabal leaped from the Chimera as it skidded to a halt next to a line of heavy infantry.

"Lets go boys! Give em heck and all that! We might be getting new toys! FOR THE EMPEROR!

[Baxter190]

As looked upon the carnage of the battlefield, Commisar let loose a blood thirsty grin. They were about to take the Tau's gear, and drive them from the battle. as he walked over the corpses of his fallen enemies, he took out his walkie talkie, and exclaimed into so he could be heard over the carnage of war, "I got a Baraccuda a click ahead of my. I need three basalics to rain down some death on it so we can open up a strategic hole for the tank corps. Rain hell!"

[chiasaur11]

As looked upon the carnage of the battlefield, Commisar let loose a blood thirsty grin. They were about to take the Tau's gear, and drive them from the battle. as he walked over the corpses of his fallen enemies, he took out his walkie talkie, and exclaimed into so he could be heard over the carnage of war, "I got a Baraccuda a click ahead of my. I need three basalics to rain down some death on it so we can open up a strategic hole for the tank corps. Rain hell!"

"Sorry Commissar, no can do. They're busy. You'll have to be satisfied with a Manta."

Lt. Chiasaur knew he'd all but signed his death warrant by mouthing off to the commissar, but he really hoped it'd be ignored what with saving the guy's life and all. Somehow, he doubted it.

Well, no guts, no glory.

[Lord Mancow]

"I got a Baraccuda a click ahead of my. I need three basalics to rain down some death on it so we can open up a strategic hole for the tank corps. Rain hell!"

Air Marshal Mancow unleashed his autocannons into an orca that was attempting to escape the Emperor's holy wrath and sent it back to the planet surface in a fiery ball of flame. He quickly jumped on his Vox-caster and exclaimed,"Commisar Baxter! Commander Cabal! Permission to test the newest addition to fleet rather than use the artillery, Sir!" He would wait for an answer but in the meantime.

"This is Mancow to Starbase Annihilator, calibrate weapons and target fleeing Xeno but be prepared to provide support for ground forces."

"Yes sir!"came the reply.

Mancow smiled, he would prove to his brother Azrael that the Starbase Annihilator would beat The Rock any day of the the Emperor's most holy week.

[Baxter190]

"I don't care how they're killed, as long as their Xeno arses die!" The Commissar replied, hopiong to take the barracuda soon. They tank had three platoons pinned down, alreayd having taken out two. Not willing to let morale fall, but not willing to risk any more lives in a charge, he exclaimed, "Prepar for the end of the Xenos! for soon the Emperor shall rain death upon our enemies!"

[Foeofthelance]

Foe frowned as the report came in over the vox-comms. A Barracuda tank? Were the filthy Xenos stealing a play from the Misfits handbook and modifiying their own combat units to fly? Damn them and their filthy ways!

"All Basilisks, task fire to the Commissar. Permission to deploy special rounds in support of the Commissar. Fire high, fire freeeee!"

-------

Firewarrior T'kle T'kle was having a bad day. The arrogant humans had stolen a move from the Ethereals and had snuck an army to the negotiations! They were not meant to be so tricky! It would just be that the Firewarriors would have to exact suitable punishment in the name of the Greater Good. Ahead, T'kle T'kle could see a small unit of the humans pinned down by fire. One in the center of the group was waving his arms about, yelling something in their bizzare language. If that was not enough to convince T'kle T'kle that he was a commanding officer, then the very large and ornate hat was a dead giveaway. He raised his rifle to his shoulder, preparing to cut the head off of the human snakes.

Before he could pull the trigger, an easily recognizable whistle pierced the air. "Incoming artillery!" he yelled, throwing himself flat as the earth around him shook and exploded as Earthshaker rounds landed all around. After a few seconds the whistling and booming stopped, and he cautiously rose to one knee.The barrage was walking away, towards the human unit, apparently arranging for very close support fire. Did the humans not like their commander?

There was a thump as something heavy smacked into the dirt beside him. Curious, he leaned over and picked up the thick, leather bound tome that had mysteriously appeared in the dirt beside him. He was not familiar with the Gothic alphabet, and so could not read the title, "TAU-GOTHIC TRANSLATION DICTIONARY DA-DE" that as emblazoned in golden letters across the front. He had just enough time to wonder, 'What is this?' when the next one slammed into the side of his helmet, snapping his neck and killing him instantly.

[Zenos]

Krahaha jumped out of the cockpit of the sentinel. He was itching for burning some xenos. "Do we have any kind of flamer or heavy flamer around? I don't know how much time the tech-priest will use repairing my sentinel, so..."

[Baxter190]

"Yes," said Baxter with a smile, seeing the barracuda being otrn apart by the incoming....dictionaries? Quickly looking through his binoculars, and saw that the dictionaries that were from Baxter's own library, so he could curse out xenos in their own language, were being used to shoot the enemy. Not sure whether to be happy they were being put to good use, or angry that his library had been raided, he called out to his driver, "Dervag, get the chimera ead,y we're going to move in!"

[warty goblin]

The Russ continued to spray hot death into the xeno forces, the barrels of the sponson bolters were glowing red, and everyone in the fighting compartments was covered in unburned propellant dust as the main gun fired again and again and again. Things were, Commander Goblin thought as the tank ran over another fleeing Fire Warrior with a characteristic 'klunk' as the armored body passed under the treads and was crushed, going quite well.

Commander Goblin peered out the vision block, searching for the next group of alien scum in need of purging, when something heavy and apparently leatherbound struck the turret, blocking his vision. He had a brief sight of the words Gothic to Tau Dictionary: Danger through Destruction stenciled on the cover in ornate gothic gold lettering.

"Uh Sir?" the incredulous voice of the driver said over the vox, "it appears to be, um, raining books."

Commander Goblin sighed. "Somebody is going to have to have a word with the arty line again. I thought after the incendiary chainsaw cowbell puppy incident they were done with the 'experimental' ammunition."

He paused, "Well carry on, and keep an eye out for the Chainmail Bikini through Combat Thong volume, I'm missing that one."

[WychWeird]

WychWeird turned to the downed servitor and reached down to it with an air of respect, "You realise now that the flesh is weak and that the Machine is strong. Know that whilst your mortal life ends your eternal life continues as the machine part of you continues in another shell. You have been blessed." Using a vibroknife, WychWeird cut back the flesh from the ruined chest and began to remove a myriad of mechanical contrivances.

"Do we have any kind of flamer or heavy flamer around? I don't know how much time the tech-priest will use repairing my sentinel, so..." A sentinel cut him off and offered an unusual, bulbous looking device.

The Voxitor spoke out, "#There is no requirement for plasma refills at this time, this plasma recharge unit will provide a flamer type effect. This unit will dispense for thirty seconds before it is expended. An analogue display will indicate remaining fuel.#"

[Da King]

Commander Cabal leaped from the Chimera as it skidded to a halt next to a line of heavy infantry.

"Lets go boys! Give em heck and all that! We might be getting new toys! FOR THE EMPEROR!

Hefting his hellgun, Sgt. King led his squad of heavy infantry forward. Far ahead,the xeno Barracuda continued to rip apart Imperial Forces. Shuddering, he continued onward, hoping today wou-THUD-Dictionaries? All around him, the heavy books continued to rain.What would those in artillery do next?

[Krrth]

Krrth


Finally, I've gotten most of the books to balance. Now, where in the Emperors Grace did those boxes of Dictionaries go? I swear, more things go missing around here...

[thorgrim29]

The 29th vets were tearing through the armory like... well like an elite squad moving with a precision that reminded the onlooker more of tyrannid hive-mind controlled drones then free willed humans through green, unprepared and unmobilized troops. As xeno scum after xeno scum was blasted and/or chainsawed into oblivion by the vets, Sgt Thorgrim spotted a few unarmored Tau rushing into a side room. He signaled his squad to stop for a moment as he followed them and saw with interest that they were activating what seemed like a city-wide com system, and he grinned as he mowed them down with two quick chainsword strikes. There even was a window there, and he could see a few buildings were ablaze, including, he hoped, the barracks were he had sent the rookies. He cleared the blood off the dials and spoke into what seemed to be the microphone after turning all the dials to the max, figuring the volume was bound to be one of them.

-Attention xeno scum, you frakking sons of cheap whores and mangy animals. This is Sgt. Thorgrim of the Playground Misfits speaking, and I hereby claim this rock as the property of The Glorious and most Holy Imperium of Mankind and it,s benevolent God Emperor. We have taken control of, or destroyed, most key buildings in your pathetic little village. Surrender now, and there is a slight possibility that you might be spared to toil in the service of the Emperor, continue fighting and die. As you can see, even now our forces are routing yours and this very town is being pummeled by precision

"a book missile crashed through the roof and landed near him"

-er... by precision books. Any imperials in the city regroup at the armory. Peace out, and, what is it the tau say.... oh yes, for the Greater Good, our's.

He laughed evilly, slagged the console, and resumed leading his squad while wondering why the warp the basilisks were shooting books.

[Destro_Yersul]

Krahaha jumped out of the cockpit of the sentinel. He was itching for burning some xenos. "Do we have any kind of flamer or heavy flamer around? I don't know how much time the tech-priest will use repairing my sentinel, so..."

"Haven't the foggiest", replied Guardsman Destro, liquefying another pair of kroot with the plasmagun as he spoke. "Ask Krrth, or loot a kroot." He chuckles at the rhyme and raises the gun again. "I think I missed one earlier. His stuff probably hasn't melted yet."

[Lord Mancow]

A crackling noise came over Mancow's Vox-caster,"Sir! Starbase has detected a large force of Xeno scum assembling at a 3.5km mountain fortress 50 klicks to the West. Analysis predicts a force in excess of 60,000 warriors and kroot as well as extensive air cover from barracudas. Sensors detect 2 manta drop ships in the same vicinity. Sir, you ought to know that they're still on the ground."

"Damn!" exclaimed Mancow. He'd been thinking about ordering a lance strike until they'd told him about the 2 mantas on the ground. He didn't know how he'd explain his action if he'd blown 2 perfectly serviceable mantas sky high.

"Commisar Baxter, theres a major force 50 km to the West as well as 2 mantas. Do I order a Lance strike."

"Starbase, prepare the lances but be sure unleash the rest of the Luftwaffe as well."

He needed to get on the ground so he could confer with Baxter, Cabal and Goblin more easily so he readied his thunderbolt for landing and ordered his personal chimera and defense squads dropped in from the Starbase.

[Moonlitrebel]

Meanwhile, back at the reserve force, Moon heard the door slam to the command room. he looked over and saw his commanding officer, Sgt. Somebody, running out ready for battle.

"Okay men!" He yelled. "Its our turn! double time, lets go! lets go show these Xenos how a real man fights!"

With a resounding roar, his squad formed up and marched down the road, eager for battle. One of the newer squadmates bent over and picked up something in the road.

"Whats this?" he asked. "Dictionary Da-De?"

"Maybe its part of the negotiation." Sgt. Somebody chuckled.

Suddenly the book, along with the man holding it, melted away in a ball of plasma. out of the forest came a force of no less than 30 fire warriors, with many more using the forest as cover to open up on the unsuspecting squad.

"Almighty God Emperor! Its a fething Ambush! Requesting help Immediately!" Sgt. Somebody yelled into the vox, just before a shot clipped him in the leg, taking him down hard.

All around, the rookies and newbs struggled to get shots off. they had no organization, no discipline, and they were going to get them all killed. A few even looked like they were about to desert right there. Illiya sighed. if he survived this battle, he was going to put in for a transfer to a more competent squad. He turned to Petroz.

"Lets get them toasty!"

With that, he shot a jet of flame into the woods, catching trees and Xenos alike in the inferno.

[Verruckt]

Tank Comm Verrukt cursed and slammed down the hatch as soon as the stricken Sentinel's pleas had kicked off the fire fight. His Marcharius languished aboard the Misfits orbital transport, its blessed megabolters considered to overt for these kind of negotiations. Instead he sat between the rows of fist sized autocannon shells of the regiment's exterminator pattern Russ. It was a firepower downgrade to be sure but she could spew plenty of xeno death if he wanted her to. His CO Goblin peeled off towards th co-ords of the sentinel, leaving Verrukt to hold the road against anything the flat-faces might try to throw at him. With a Russ on his left and a Russ on his right he made an executive decision.

"Retribution and Lamentation, take up positions to my 8 and 4 o'clock respectively, overlap sponson's fields of fire. We hold this road until the regiment comes through or Goblin says otherwise!"

The other two tanks ground the dust as they churned around and into position. Sponsons swiveled in search of targets. Then a Crisis Suit burst through the trees and sent a torrent of blue ricocheting off the front of the executioner. The Russ' gunner shouted into his bead "Target, tracking..."
"Send 'em!" The tank shook as four rounds thumped out and messily dismembered the accursedly nimble Tau mockery of a dreadnought.
"Reloading!" New sets of cannon shells slammed into place, the turret tracked back. Then two more Crisis suits shot out above tree level. The left sponson gunner winged one of them and the other was struck by what Verrukt could have sworn was a... Dictionary? The horde of fire warriors that followed them was more off a cause for concern.

Verrukt looked out through his vision blocks and smiled "Weapons Free."

[Baxter190]

"Well then, more Xeno blood to be spilt for the emporer," said the Commisar, ready for action against the new Tau forces. Turing to his troops, he said, "We got a new target 50 km to the west, we're going to meet up with some russes, and go tear them apart." Then, addressing Mancow through his vox, the commissar told him. We'll need tome covering fire, layer the raod in front of us in bombs with a safe distance from us. Try some precision strikes on the enemy, but leave the Manta's to us. I'll get some Russes to try to disable them so we "requsition" their parts." with that said, he got in his chimera piloted by Dervag, and with the rest of his unit and men, moved out. Soon enough, he came across some Lemun Russes near a forest, and had his men open fire on the fire caste Xeno's. After killing them all, he told the Pilot of the middle tank to come with him, and to keep an eye out for any Tau.

[Verruckt]

Verrukt spied the Commissar leading up the guard column that had handily flanked the fire warriors and popped his hatch. "Tanks Retribution, Lamentation and His Furious Reign ready to supplement your firepower sir, tell us where you need us." he looked down and saw for the first time that a dictionary had become lodged twixt the Exterminator's twin cannons and wrenched it out with a *pop*. "You wouldn't happen to be missing Damnation through Defiler sir?"

[Moonlitrebel]

Trooper Moon grimaced as he used his flamer to light another cursed Xenos on fire. He knew he was running out of Promethium, and he didn't fancy using his laspistol against these Abominations. Suddenly, one Tau came running out of the forest, charging at him. Petroz felled him with a shot to the head.

"thank you..." he mumbled, looking around. more than half his squad was down, including Sgt. Somebody, who was knocked out cold by the vox set. Trooper Moon scrambled over to it.

" Requesting assistance! For God's sake! Sgt Somebody is down, and we have an unknown amount of Xenos assaulting our position! We're by the reinforcement zone! Look for the burning forest! Hurry!"

Praying someone was paying attention, Trooper Moon picked up his flamer and continued burning the Xenos scum.

[Lord Mancow]

"We'll need tome covering fire, layer the road in front of us in bombs with a safe distance from us. Try some precision strikes on the enemy, but leave the Manta's to us. I'll get some Russes to try to disable them so we "requisition" their parts."

"Requesting assistance! For God's sake! Sgt Somebody is down, and we have an unknown amount of Xenos assaulting our position! We're by the reinforcement zone! Look for the burning forest! Hurry!"

Mancow reacted instantly as the requests came in over the vox. He jumped on his vox and ordered, "I want all thunderbolts to clear out any remaining Xeno fliers and then provide support for Baxter to the West. Same with all the Marauders except for squad four who are to go and support the Guard Platoon who's pinned down near the reinforcement point."

He then landed and transferred into a Valkyrie to assist in the ground fighting using the mighty gunship.

[xanaphia]

"Mined road coming up, sir." said the statistician to Lord Mancow.

The chief statistician in his Valkyrie got out his calculator. His mook looked up. "When do we shoot?"

"Well," said the statistician, "we are moving at three hundred miles an hour and are 100 feet above the road. We want to hit what is 5000 feet in fron of us."

"But when do we shoot?" said the mook, who had failed the compulsory IG trig classes.

"When we shoot, our bombs will go forward at 300mi/h.

=(1780*300)yd/h
=534000yd/h
=1602000 ft/h
=26700 ft/min
=445 ft/s

Our bombs have parachutes, and go down at 15ft per second.
100/15=6 2/3 seconds to get down.

In 6 2/3 seconds, at 445 ft/second they will go

20/3 *445=2966 2/3m

So we need to go 5000-2966 2/3m forward before we drop the bombs.

5000-2966 2/3=2033 1/3m

At 445 ft/s

(2033 1/3)/445=4.57 (2dp)

So we need to wait 4.57 seconds before we drop the bombs."

"Um, sir, we passed the road three minutes ago."

The statistician/mathematician sighed. "Damn."

The mook butted in. "But it was very impressive maths. And how exactly do you pronounce ^ ?"

No-one said, "Anything."

The mook said, "Okay, lets turn around."

[Zenos]

Krahaha ran up to a chimera, hitching hold of the side and crawling up on the turret, his newly acquired weapon ready to burn the xenos as soon as he was within reach. The chimera sped along, towards the forest edges.

[Baxter190]

"No, I'm fi-" the commissar began, when for some reason, a dictionary plopped tiself directly in his hands. looking donw at it, he raid the cover, "Chainmail bikini-Combat thong", with a rather graphic cover illistration. Blushing for a a second, he rather slyly, at least to himself, hid the book in his great coat for latter, and said, "Anyways....we've got a Tau force about 50 km to the west. The air force should take out the ground troops, but we need your tanks to disable the mantas. Don't destroy them if you can though. we may want to....requisition them after the battle." Finishing the last sentance with a wink, he heard over his vox that sgt. Somebody was down. Scared for the life of his men, the Commissar said, "But first, somebody else needs our help!" Getting into his own chimera, the tanks and his guardsmen road off to battle, arriving in a few minutes, and cleared out the Tau that were attackign his fellow soldiers.

[Innis Cabal]

Commander Cabal's chimera came skidding to a halt at the front lines, leaping out and unloading his hell pistol into a group of Fire Warriors.

"Give em hell boys! Get the launchers ready! Give em support! Don't let em break though!"

Commander Cabal then threw his spent pistol to the ground, picking up one of the xeno's rifles.

"Look what we got here boys! For toys!"

[warty goblin]

Commander Goblin stared with satisfaction through the vision block at the mounds of Tau bodies choking the square. There was still ongoing fighting, with Tau forces holed up in buildings, but the overall tide was firmly in the favor of the Emperor's servants. That was good, he, and the armored might of his Russ, was needed elsewhere. Worse yet, they were running seriously short of ammunition

"Driver!" he barked down into the front of the fighting compartment, interrupting the happy humming coming from the man as he ran yet another Tau down with a satisfying 'squelch.' "How long will it take to get back to the dropship for resupply?"

"tum-te-Tau-te-splat-te-humm, what's that sir? Oh, I'd say about five minutes full speed. Four if we don't stop for buildings and such like."

"You a fan of xeno architecture?" Goblin growled, "just drive, and don't worry about mussing up their flower gardens on the way."

As the tank lurched forward and smashed through the wall of a xeno house, scattering and smashing alien knickknacks and boxed editions of Survivor: Tau Edition left and right in a glorious paean not only to the Emperor's Righteousness, but also to good taste in general, Commander Goblin switched channels on the vox.

"Commissar Baxter? I'm moving to your position ASAP. We just need to swing back to the dropship to retrieve fresh munitions. We won't do you much good if we show up on empty mags now will we?"

[Baxter190]

"No, I don't think that would do anyone any good," said the commissar with a laugh over his vox. As he looked around the surrounding carnage, he said, "Pick up some Missle Launchers if you can, and get me my powerfist. My chainswords getting a little worn, and we have to take down some manta's."

[Moonlitrebel]

The flamer sputtered, and with a horrible groan stopped firing. Trooper Moon knew in an instant, he was out of fuel. he exclaimed some colorful words that would have had him locked in solitary for a week if Commissar Baxter heard him. he pulled out his pistol. it was a decorative pistol, taken long ago from an imperial governor who had no use for it in the afterlife. he set his sight on a tau and aimed carefully....

... before he could shoot, the tau was torn apart from a barrage of las shots. Moon took a look at where the shots had came from, and smiled.

the fething calvary had arrived.

The commissar himself was leading the charge to wipe out the xenos scum and save the few still alive. Aircraft screamed overhead, making sure none escaped.

Moon looked around. There weren't many of his squad mates left, not at all. Medics tended to Sgt. Somebody, how was unconscious from blood loss. He also saw Petroz, and a handful of others. One of them he recognized as the youth who had harrassed him earlier. He was kneeling down, his face buried in his hands. Moon walked over.

" So you made it." he stated. the youth looked up. he didn't say anything. He just stared.

"got your fill of xenos yet?" he asked. the trooper looked like he was about to cry.

"Yessir..." the lad stated. Then he promptly threw up.

Moon chucked, and lit up a lho stick. Yes, he really really needed a transfer.

[KnightDisciple]

A small squad of Tau Fire Warriors, accompanied by a single Crisis suit, were quietly making their way to the position of the newly-arrived Commissar and Trooper Moon.
What the Tau didn't know is that they were being followed. By the veteran Squad 29. The rookies had hooked up with the main force, but Trooper Knight had seen this xeno group and had insisted to the Sergeant that they follow. One of his gut feelings, you see.
Just as the xenos were taking aim, Knight lept up onto the back of the Crisis, jammed his hellgun into the gap between helmet and torso, and held down the trigger. A most gratifying result, and maybe their tech boys could have fun with it...once they clean it out.
He quickly lept off the falling corpse, making a couple of snap shots in the air, and landed in a crouch, plastering a Fire Warrior right in front of him, as the rest were quickly downed by Squad 29.
Once they finished, they jogged over to the Commissar and others, and saluted.
"Ready for orders, Commissar."

[Zenos]

Krahaha jumped of the chimera as it sped by an old bunker entrance. He walked up to the door, shot the hinges off with continoual blasting from his laspistol, and walked in, plasma flamer ready.

Something charged at him from the darkness, he shoved the barrel of the weapon at it's belly and fired. He looked at in wonder and love as the kroot's guts turned to so much goo.

[Verruckt]

Verrukt paused giving positioning orders to the other two Russ' to pop onto the intra-tank vox channel. "Goblin Sir, request that you bring a pair of resupply Chimeras with you to the muster point. Lamentations commander expended all of his AP rounds on a Tigershark that wouldn't sit still and I've only got 20 autocannon shells left. The troops could use a few more power packs and flamer fuel as well I'm sure." He levered his torso up through the hatch of the tank and looked out at the troops. The ones they'd moved to rescue had been hit pretty hard, rookies all most likely. He decided to lift their spirits as best he knew how, he squared his dashing Tank Comm hat on his head and pulled up his chainsword and Megavox out of the turret basket. He brandished the blade over his head and gave it a couple revs to get their attention. He hefted the vox to his lips "Fellow men of the Guard, let us remember the words of Lord Solar Marcharius, who spoke at the inception of our most holy forces 'What I cannot crush with words, I will crush with The Tanks of the IMPERIAL GUARD!' so follow our guns to honor and glory. For the Colonel, For the Commissar, For The Emperor!"

[Zenos]

"For the burn!"
Krahaha shouted in joy whilst spewing plasma fire up the corridor, melting kroot and a few tau fire warriors. The fire warriors got their trial by fire now. And they were found wanting... He laughed some more.

[chiasaur11]

Chiasaur smiled.

The Xenos were, for the most part, on the run, casualties looked well within what even the Tanith 1st and Only would call acceptable, and the tech on the Mantas alone would keep the techs busy for months.

Frankly, if this sort of mission was the norm, rather than the exception, it was a wonder the Tau weren't either a protected species or extinct.

Well, no use complaining over life's little gifts.

"Sir, another one won't surrender."

"Just load him in the cannon. Now, what are we betting a Tau can be used to down a Piranah, if shot with sufficient force?"

[Zenos]

"Tihs feels like shooting tau in a barrel," Krahaha murmured to himself. He was shooting at some tau fire warriors stuck in a maintaineance shaft.

[Destro_Yersul]

"Lucky. Your tau get to be in a barrel. My tau are in a half-melted tin can that used to be a tank." Destro joined Krahaha at the mouth of the shaft. "At least, I think it was a tank."

[Zenos]

Krahaha stepped onto the edge of the shaft and shouted, "For the emperors flames!" Thenhe leapt in, shorching the interior on his way down. He landed, rolling with the impact to lessen the damage. Then he got up and looked around. No-one there. "Clear!" he shouted as he ran into a side tunnel.

[thorgrim29]

When Knight spotted the xeno preparing to ambush the command squad, Sargent Thorgrim pondered the course to take. He could go help with his whole force of course, but that would mean leaving the building and its stockpile of shiny toys. In the end, he decided to send his squad and stay here with the recruits. He motioned Knight nearer and whispered:

-Ok, go in with the 29nt, I'll stay here with the rookies, provide morale.

[Lord Mancow]

Mancow watched with pleasure as the thunderbolts and marauders of the Luftwaffe dropped from space and smashed the defending Xeno aircraft before moving on to the ground troops. It was obvious to his experienced eye that they had caught the Xeno's unawares. He then pushed his Valkyrie forward to join the line of gunships that were advancing in hover mode on the Tau as he taunted Goblin,"Looks like you'll be missing out on the fun!"

[xanaphia]

The chief statistician of the Misfits had a very strange next few minutes.

To start with, he had been looking up Luftwaffe in a German dictionary while he should have been directing his Valkyrie. This resulted in him getting boarded by Kroot, flying fast enough in their strange aircraft to board a full on plane. His crew killed them all, with only one casualty.

Then he spotted an Ethereal on the ground, carrying a white flag. The Chief Mathematician of the Imperial Guard Playground Misfits decided to talk to this xenos, hoping that no-one would spot him.

He parachuted out of the Valkyrie, shouting "Pro Mente et Libis!", after telling his mooks to fly around at their own whims for a few minutes.

He landed near the Ethereal. The Ethereal smiled.

"Hello," he said.

"Hello," the Chief Mathematician of the Imperial Guard Playground Misfits replied. "What is your name?"

"Aun'la S'tranj. In my language it means Ethereal Who Displays Positive Deviation From The Norm."

"What's 56 plus 45?" enquired the Mathematican.

The ethereal shook his head to concentrate.

"Anooo, 101. Why?"

"I need a second in command. You seem smart enough. Will you take the post?"

"The alternative?"

"Death."

"Okay then."

The commander took the Ethereal back up to his ship.

[chiasaur11]

"Next!"

Lt Chiasaur was having fun. Tau were,in fact, effective anti-vehicle ammunition. In fact, the troops had started making the surrender terms better. Somehow, the defiance made it even better.

"And in addition to a trial by a jury of your peers where you will be presumed (snickering) innoc bwahahaha! sorry, sorry. Innocent, you will be given an opportunity to work off your crimes as well as protection for the men, or, more accurately, the xeno scum under your..."

"I accept"

"Okay, load him... wait. What?"

This was awkward. The Lt liked to think of himself as a fair man. He liked to think he kept his word when there was any real chance of it. But this sort of thing was just not done. Oh well.

"You know, we could use more cannon fodder. You, Jenkins, in the back. Write up recruitment papers for some poor refugees with a skin condition. They can be deployed next time we land. Put them in the rec lounge and fill them in."

Chiasaur motioned the Xeno scum out. This sort of thing was going to be very hard to explain to the commander, let alone the Commissar.

"Send more in."

"Haven't you recruited enough heretics today?"

"Yes. And frankly, I need to do a lot of ammo testing to make up for it. Do you think Air Castes shoot further than earth?"

"Only one way to find out."

[Krrth]

*Listening in to the vox chatter, Krrth groaned*



Now I've gotta gget out the archives....now where did I put...ok, there it is! I never thought I'd use them, but...



*Pulls out Form 132-b23...Recruitment of Abhumans, and form 847362-Q, attestation by a commisar or inquistor that the subject is indeed an Abhuman, not some filthy Xeno scum.*

[Verruckt]

Verrukt and the rest of the tanks arrived at the head of the infantry columns as they stormed Manta landing grounds. Only to find that at least one manta was already locked down and out of commission. There were periodic dull *fumps* followed by what appeared to be flying fire warriors flailing through the air that came from the bow of one of the massive craft. It was only then that he noticed the smoking hulls of several Tau skimmers with great splats of blue leaking around the holes in their armor... What is the Emperor's name had the rest of the regiment been getting up to?

[Foeofthelance]

*About five minutes previously...*

Foe had been circling the airfield for several moments, wondering what the best way to handle the situation was. The air was for the moment clear of enemy aircraft, thanks to the reinforcements Mancow had sent on ahead. He just wasn't sure what to do with his guns. The explosions were generally too big to be used around the Mantas, as he was fairly sure the Commissar wanted some intact for "study". Not to mention it was getting hard to tell who was who down there with all the gunfighting and smaller explosions.

"Sir, we have a problem," the starboard gunner reported. "The barrel is stuck in open. I can't seal her to fire."

"Well, that's not good," Foe replied. "If you can't fire the guns, what's the point? We might as well just be dropping the shells on them at that point."

"Ok." There was a slight lurch, as if the load had become rather suddenly unbalance on the starboard side. Foe winced, and counted to five.

"What did you just do?"

"Well, you said to just drop it, sir..."

--------------

Down on the ground a group of Tau skimmers was defiantely trying to hold off the oncoming Imperials, when the falling shell slammed into the middle of their formation, squashing one of the drivers as pit passed through the ship. There it encountered the remains of the antigravity field employed by the hovercraft. Its gyros spun up suddenly...

BOOM

[WychWeird]

The TechPriest paused to listen to the sounds of the fight moving away and bent back to the task at hand, repairing the various linkages with the recovered parts of the servitor.

Servitor Zeta42, your sacrifice will be remembered, He thought as he worked, This repair should be completed shortly and then it's the Litany of Commissioning.

"#Estimated time to completion: 15 minutes#" The Voxitor broadcast to Guardsmen in the area. "#All praise to the Machine Spirit.#"

[Destro_Yersul]

Guardsman Destro was still trying to decide whether or not he wanted to jump down the shaft when he heard a noise behind him. He turned around, and was more than a little surprised to be staring down the barrel of a kroot rifle.

"Huh. Musta missed one." The guardsman shrugged, noticing as he did so that the krrot in question had been taking a few trophies from the things it had killed, including some other regiment's commissar.

The kroot squawked at him, and he shrugged again. "Polly want a cracker?" he asked it. It narrowed his eyes and prodded him with its rifle. He prodded it with the barrel of his plasmagun. There was shortly a full on poking contest going back and forth, neither side willing to give in.

Until, that is, the guardsman decided he was bored and shot the birdlike alien. Shortly after, now wearing his shiny new commissar's cap, he followed the sentinel pilot down the shaft.

[Zenos]

Krahaha ran into a bunker room. It was full of tau ammo. Railgun shells, stuff for pulse rifles, the pulse rifles themsleves, photon grenades, lots of stuff. He picked up a long rifle, like that the hammerheads used, but smaller, man-portable. He took it up and slung it over his shoulder.
*click*.
A gun drone popped out of its cover and fired at him. It hit an ammo crate behind Krahaha and exploded, knocking Krahaha off his feet. He stck the nozzle of his flamer into the drones bottom and vapourised it with plasma flame. Then he heard more *clicks*. "MORE. TARGETS!" He shouted, pointing his plasma flamer at the door.

[Innis Cabal]

Commander Cabal grunted as he tied another wound shut, the Tau were good shots...not good enough to kill him, but good enough to make the whole thing a pain in his rear.

Commander Cabal and the rest of his men had bunkered up in a large warehouse at the heart of the newest conflict, munitions of their weapons were low, but the xeno weapons were thankfully durable, and the lulls gave them time to pull what they could salvage back into the warehouse. Commander Cabal was loathe to do it, but it was time to call in for support, grabbing the Vox Caster from the communications officer.

"This is Commander Cabal, currently pinned down in the city, all are pretty banged up, can we get some armored support, could use a new hat to, oh and some bandages"

[chiasaur11]

Chiasaur analyzed the situation. A handfull of Tau in the ranks, Xeno tech everywhere, what appeared to be a non commissar in a commissar's hat, unconventional tactics...

"Boys, crack open the amasec. We are now officially the most heretical unit to have not yet fallen to chaos. And I swear, if one of you sprouts tentacles, I'll report us to the Inquisition myself."

He then bnegan planning how to deal with the Tau left aboard. There'd been reports of genestealers on a space hulk within the misfit's area of authority. It wasn't likely a handfull of troops could manage it by themselves, solving the problem one way. And if they excelled, well, the Imperium had been known to overlook some odd biological quirks in exceptional soldiers.

He dearly hoped the second option would not come up.

[xanaphia]

"Commander Kabal, fire support is on the way."
The statistician decided to be entirely normal for one firefight. He shot towards the city in his Valkyrie. He shot up some buildings, killed some Tau, and gave Cabal a new hat.

[Innis Cabal]

Commander Cabal threw his blasted hat to the ground, putting the new on on and grabbing the Vox Caster once again

"This is Commander Cabal, got my new hat, procedding into the center of town, ho-rah!"

[Zenos]

Krahaha sent another burst of plasma into the gun drones entering. There was about a doze of them. Now there were none. He walked out, into the corridors, calmly found a ladder and clambered up to the surface. He found he was in the middle of some kind of square, with some kind of giant televisor broadcastinging device at the end. Xenos propaganda device, he decided. He hefted his borrowed rail rifle and aimed at the middle of the televisor screen, where one of the grey-heads with the funky robes appeared, with a defeated look on its face. Then he shot and the device shattered into dozens of large pieces and thousands of small ones.

[Lord Mancow]

"Okay men, pull back the Valkyries and regroup at my position then advance into the center and make sure you capture those mantas intact!" commanded Mancow into his vox. "This is Mancow to Mathematician, do you read me? Take a drop ship and get some ground troops over here right now. We're going after the Mantas and can't hold them without ground support."

"Mancow to Misfits. Is assistance required anywhere? My scans show nothing you can't handle. If you need help from us your gunna have to wait, we're all tied up here, can't spare anyone."

[Krrth]

What? yeah, just stack it over there. No, don't worry about it. A little elbow grease and the blue will come right out. Some paint, a little tailoring, we should be good to go.


*looks at the stack of armored Tau bodies*


Well, this should make me a little more popular around here. Or get me shot.

[Moonlitrebel]

Trooper Moon walked over to Commissar Baxter, who seemed lost in thought looking at a dictionary.

"Sir? Sorry to bother you, but do you have any orders for me, sir?"

[Zenos]

Krahaha looked around. The ruined buildings were silent, only a few flames, some smoke, and a screaming earth caste tau with a broken leg. He walked over to the wounded tau, looked it in the eye. Then he hefted his rail rifle in both hands and smashed its brains over the plaza. He walked away.

[chiasaur11]

Chiasaur put down the transmitter.
"Well, we got our orders, and not a minute too soon from where I'm standing. We're to begin Evac at once. Transports out are catch as catch can, so we just got real lucky."
"But sir, we're winning."
"And the big =][= would like to see how a single guard unit took a planet by itself. And they wouldn't like the answer, I think. If you ever wondered why our service records are so non-descript... this is why."

[Innis Cabal]

The call hand gone through, time to pack up and leave. He grabbed a vox caster and screamed through it

"If anyone has anything else to say to the Xeno's scum do it now! All ranked officers. My office 0700 tommorow!"

[Keris]

Commodore Keris Rain looked grimly across the bridge of the Purgatio Vis, the light from the consoles giving the features of the bridge crew an eerie tint. The room was dominated by a hololithic projection of the world below, baffling symbols representing the flow of battle. The Guard forces had certainly performed well, taking the Xenos forces apart on the ground while the glorious aircraft of the Navy had obliterated the opposing air and reserve forces. Shame the only squadrons in action belonged to Mancow.

Keris looked from the central hololith to the peripheral displays around him, showing the status of the small fleet stationed in low orbit. Lord Mancow’s vessels lay in a rough group, their formation broken by the huge lump of rock they had industriously towed through the warp. Mancow had explained its origin to him once, during the only time the two officers had met. He’d invited the Air Marshal to the Flagship of Battlefleet Absentis when he was first informed they would be commanding supporting elements of the fleet.

Mancow had been disappointing. Expecting an officer with Mancow’s record to be serious and by-the-book, he had been shocked to find the man brash, and seemingly more at home with the ratings on the flight deck than with the officers. And the man had talked. He had gone on and on about his past, spouting clearly embellished stories about aerial combat, and his plans for “Starbase Annihilator”. Keris had had to excuse himself before they had even begun to start discussing possible tactics, and as a result the two fleet elements had performed almost entirely independently, Absentis carrying the Guard elements while Mancow had deployed his aircraft in every pacification mission so far.

An alert flagged up on the main screen, interrupting Keris’s reverie. The XO of the ground crew, a Lt. Chiasaur, was signalling for evac units. Frowning, Keris waved his command wand to begin the launch of the dropships. The battle shouldn’t be over yet; the tacticians had predicted it would take at least a week to eliminate all Xenos units. But then again, this was the Misfits. They’re probably just trying to run with what loot they’ve managed to grab. That seemed to be their usual MO. Hopefully they hadn’t tried to take anything too heretical, his patience had been almost used up by the Squig incident.

As he though his, Keris glanced uneasily behind his shoulder, there, beneath a 20ft tall statue of the Emperor, were the reinforced blast doors leading to the Captain’s command throne. Admiral Hansaard resided beyond, practically immobile, hundreds of MIU units giving him complete control over the fleet. Of course, he hadn’t been seen to leave his chair in over a century, and the blast doors had been sealed for the last dozen years. The Admiral had recently become delusional, believing he was transporting the Mordian IXth, and woe betide Keris if he found out the truth. Luckily the Admiral’s mind was slowly merging with the great Machine Spirit of the Purgatio Vis, within a few years he would cease to exist as an individual, his body failing as his mind forgot it. Until then Keris was bound to serve him by word, and supervised the day-to-day running of the fleet, allowing the Admiral greater control over the vessel he was bound to.

[Fay Graydon]

Ikaeru ducked his head for what felt like the millionth time that day.
He raised his Mrk VI Sniper Rifle to his eye and sighted another target, he squeezed the trigger gently and saw the Orks head explode in a shower of blood, bone and possibly brain.
More shots zinged over head.
Luckily for him and his men, Orks are terrible shots.
But it was only a matter of time before they penetrated their defences...

"HIGGS!" Ikaeru bellowed. "we need that damned Baneblade operational!"
"I'm sorry sir but the Orks have completly ruined it! it's likerally scrap metal now..."
Ikaeru glanced at his beloved Baneblade which the men mockingly call the Blaineblade...
The Baneblade Artificer lay in a ruined, rubble heap... Higgs had been working around the clock to try and get even one part to work, but he had had no success.
Just then a Bullet from one of the Ork's makeshift guns struck him squarly in the shoulder.
"CAPTAIN" screamed the man next to him.
"I'm fine..." he lied as he passed his gun to the man and crawled out of the parapet to where Colonel Abrams was lying.

"Captain..." started the Colonel.
"Sir, you've lost a lot of blood... you need to rest"
"Be slilent Captain... I know that theres nothing that can be done for me....
I want you to promice...."
"Sir?" asked Ikaeru through the pain in his shoulder.
"Take care of the men..." and with the Colonel's last breath he said "Major Blaine..."

.........

"Sir?" asked a small man that Ikaeru new was called Stims or something.
"What is it?"
"What should we do?"
The medics finished patching Ikaeru up.
He stands up and straitens his Carapace Flak Jacket.
"Send out a distress call to the nearest fleet... tell them we have the remains of the 707th heavy tank company and need Evac ASAP!
tell them we also want an orbital bombardment of the area afterwards! like hell im gunna let these Orks like after they killed almost all my men!"
"Sir the nearest fleet is the Battlefleet Absentis..."
"Huh..." grunted Ikaeru "and to think we were on route to merge our already devastated regiment before this attack..."

Ikaeru ran over to the huge, Intercostle Vox Caster and started to send his message on all frequencies...
"This is Major Ikaeru Blaine of the 707th Heavy Tank Company... we are stuck on the planet of Polaris V and are requesting Evac and Orbital Bombardment... Please we are in dire need of assistance... Repeating Message..."

[Moonlitrebel]

Trooper Moon loaded up his gear and walked into the transport he was assigned to. he wasn't sure why, but the Misfits had to leave, and they had to leave fast. And he wasn't complaining. The farther he got away from the enemy guns, the better his survival chances were.

Now that he was in the relative safety of the transport, he lit a lho-stick, and started thinking. Rumors around the regiment was that command was thinking of promoting him to sergeant. That is, if Moon could "shape up." Its no secret Moon had a bad attitude, and everyone felt he didn't really care for any people in his squad other than Petroz. But really, that wasn't the truth. It was just hard enough for Moon to look after himself without worrying about a bunch of snot-nosed youths straight out of training too.

the bulkheads shook and the floor vibrated as the shuttle took off. the men around him were whooping and hollering like they just did something special. Moon just focused on cleaning his flamer of all the soot and mud on it. That's the other reason he would never get promoted. they'd make him get rid of his flamer. and he wouldn't trade this gun for any weapon, man-made or Xeno. He just liked burning things and people too much. As the transport rode out into space, towards Battlefleet Absentis, he took a deep breath. he wondered what hellhole they were gonna be headed to now. then he decided he didn't care, as long as there were more things to burn.

[Innis Cabal]

Commander Cabal stepped onto the bridge of the Flagship, giving a dirty look to the members of the Navy.

"Lets go home boys."

[WychWeird]

The TechPriest tightened the last fastener and cleared the bypass commands before ordering the servitor to decouple the transfusion pipes. Humming a Litany to the Machine Spirit quietly to himself, he booted the diagnostics and ran a sequence of tests, feeling the responses through the neural link before directing the remote power-up sequence. The sentinel walked forward a few paces then returned to it's original position.

"#Sentinel Pilot Karhaha of Sentinel #070899. Field repairs are complete; Sentinel is operating within acceptable parameters. You may collect the Sentinel on completion of the Ritual of Commissioning. All praise the Machine Spirit.#" Wychweird removed the link and closed the access panels as he invoked the Ritual, fanning the spark of the Machine Spirit to full force. He directed the servitors back into the rhino to await Karhaha's return.

[Foeofthelance]

Foe smiled as the order to return to the FOB came in. He wasn't necessarily looking forward to the ranking officer's meeting tomorrow, but hey, life was good. He had a new artillery platform, and depending on how well the salvage teams had done, might be able to mod a few more Things. There was something exhilirating about combining the speed and manouverability of the xeno fighter with the sheer firepower of the Imperial's artillery. Well, exhilirating for him and his men at any rate. Probably more terrifying for anyone who had been caught beneath them...

He thumbed the vox. "All Lizards, this is Basilisk Six. Colonel Cabal has hoisted the flag, so get ready to hop. I want everything loaded and airborne before I get home. Make sure to leave me a spot on the shuttles."

He banked the fighter/field piece into a tight bank, vectoring back towards the field the artillery command had set up. It didn't take long to get back with the speed the fighter made available, and the men were already breaking camp before he got there. The Basilisks were already packed away on their ships, tubes depressed to full. Behind them were stacks of full ammo pallets, the heavy explosives carefully tucked away. Here and there there would be a small explosion at one end of the field as the shells deemed too risky to keep were blown in place, leaving nothing for an enemy.

A pair of innovative guardsmen had requistioned a pair of signalling flags each and waved him down in front of the center shuttle. It took a few moments of playing around with the controls to finally drop the Thing's hoverfield enough to float it into the waiting shuttle, where Foe got his second surprise of the day. There sitting in front of him were four brand spanking new Sky Ray gunships, their less happy looking xeno crews kneeling in front of them. The xenos had their heads bowed hands crossed behind their necks in the standard prisoner pose, and a platoon of trigger happy looking guardsmen stood guard, lasguns leveled. Off to the side sat the wreckage of a fifth Sky Ray, it's side blown open in a massive hole that extended from end of the craft to the other.

"Caught 'em trying to sneak around for a firing position on the rest of the boys, sir," one of the flag bearers reported. "Took 'em entirely by surprise we did. Had to blow the leader up to get 'em to stop, it's that balsted on right over there, but once they realized were ready and they weren't they gave up right quick. Figured we didn't want ta leave 'em behind so we tightened up on a few things and stashed 'em in a shuttle."

"Do they work?" Foe asked, his curiosity over riding his shock. It might be hard to get ammunition for them, but then he'd known Krrth to find stranger things to requisition before...

"Scooped the blueboys there before they had a chance to do much sir," the newly promoted lieutenant (he didn't know that yet though) answered. "Should be perfectly fine, we figure how to get 'em and going."

"Well, good find lads, good finds!" Foe complimented. "There's been a good killing this day. Got another one tomorrow. So everybody get it up and going, we're off to the next fight."

"What should we do with the blueboys sir?"

Foe thought about it for a moment. They might need translators to teach them how to use their new toys. "Shoot all but three. Dump the bodies out in the field. Oh, and cut the bindings and make 'em run. We don't want to be accused of war crimes, now do we?"

[thorgrim29]

Thorgrim looked at the terrified, bloody and spent guardsmen he had been holding together for the last minutes. The combat was now over, the Tau were on full retreat, and it was time to go home.

-Well lads, that wasn't too bad was it?

A few of the recruits looked at him with horror in their eyes and retched.

-The first one is always the worst lads... If any of you are still alive in a year or so I might have a spot for you in my squad, now lets go! I want you to travel in teams of 4 through the building, grab carts and stack whatever seems useful, with an emphasis on weapons and ammunition. One of you always keeps his weapon ready.

30 minutes later, he led the convoy to the town center, where he met up with his own squad.

-Had fun boys? Give the noobs a hand with loading that stuff, if we need space we can always jog, they're not in any shape to do so.

[chiasaur11]

The emergency channel crackled to life. It seemed a guard unit was pinned down by Orks fairly near by. And if anyone in the unit knew the commanding officer, they'd know he was in favor of the old "Death or Glory" heroic charges, last minute rescues, and, of course, looting. A pinned down guard unit, sadly, fit all the criteria. Looked like the Xenos would need to be taught how not to die after all.

"Attention all troops aboard the newly rechristened TES Death's Lil Helper: I apologize to those expecting a breather after that action, but we are hereby ordered to come to the aid of another unit being attacked by an Orkish WAAGHHH. Any Xenos aboard may be relieved to learn that the current mission overwrote all records of pending executions and species affiliation. It seems, in light of the current mission, we'll just have to assume we're all loyal guardsmen. Report to the barracks for a quick round of emergency combat training. And try not to die if at all possible."

[Keris]

Keris watched in the viewpoints as tiny lights flared in the atmosphere below, dropships in their hundreds launching from the Imperial lines. The withdrawal was proceeding well, and they should be ready to move out within a couple of days. Soon the dropships would be falling down once more, onto a different world, carrying troops ready to bring the might of the Imperium to its foes.

An ensign moved nervously up to Keris, a dataslate clutched in his hands. "Commodore... Sir... This just came in via Astropath. I think you may want to look at it sir." Frowning, Keris dismissed the ensign with a wave of his hand, and connected the dataslate to his terminal. The ensign hadn't lied, it did indeed contain an Astropathic communique, but it registered as coming from the Polaris System, a region far away from their campaign route. The file seemed to be audio, so Keris ran it through his headset.
"This is Major Ikaeru Blaine of the 707th Heavy Tank Company... we are stuck on the planet of Polaris V and are requesting Evac and Orbital Bombardment... Please we are in dire need of assistance... Repeating Message..."

Keris's frown deepened. This was bad, he couldn't refuse an obvious distress signal, and if the fleet dispatched to Polaris had been wiped out, then Battlefleet Absentis should be the closest friendly forces. But to deviate from the campaign plan could be considered an act of heresy. He'd have to ask the Admiral.

"Sir, we have received a distress signal from the Polaris system. Should we deviate from our campaign plan and come to their aid? Our forces are even now pulling out of the world below."
"THE MIGHT OF THE IMPERIUM KNOWS NO BOUNDS!" The Admiral's artificially enhanced voice boomed through the bridge, causing the crew to jump. Keris cursed inwardly, he'd opened a closed channel for a reason.
"ITS MIGHT REACHES ALL THOSE IN AID, AND NONE CAN DENY IT!"
"Should I course projection plotted sir?" Keris motioned for an ensign to begin to do just that.
"PROCEED TO OUR BROTHERS WITH ALL HASTE, AND LET THEM BE SNATCHED FROM THE JAWS OF DEATH"
"At once sir." Thankful it was over, Keris cut the channel. "Contact the other commanders. We have the Admiral's opinion, now let's find out theirs."

As he finished saying this, Keris heard the bridge doors open, and looked round to see the Guard Commander stride in, glaring at various crew members.
"Let's go home boys" he proclaimed. Keris cursed his timing, but at least he hadn't walked in while the Admiral was listening.

"Ah, Commander. I was just trying to contact you. I appears a fellow Imperial Regiment has run into some trouble against some Orks. Now, the Admiral thinks we should rush in there bravely, but we are all interested in what you think we should do. Are your men up to another engagement?"

[Innis Cabal]

"My boys are always in for a good fight, but we also like playing with our toys before trying them out. Get the rest of command up here. We'll chat it out. The other boys out there can hold tight for a time, if not, then they'd have only left us strung out in the cold in the middle o'combat."

[chiasaur11]

"My boys are always in for a good fight, but we also like playing with our toys before trying them out. Get the rest of command up here. We'll chat it out. The other boys out there can hold tight for a time, if not, then they'd have only left us strung out in the cold in the middle o'combat."

Right. Should I be at the debriefing, or do you want me giving the new troops a quick rundown of how it all works?

[Innis Cabal]

((The Latter I think, you had the idea after all :smallwink:))

[Foeofthelance]

"Basilisk Six, reporting, sir!" Foe declared, snapping smartly attention as he stepped on to the bridge. He looked around.

"Damn, I'm first again, aren't I? Why can't I ever make a fashinably late entrance?"

[chiasaur11]

((The Latter I think, you had the idea after all :smallwink:))

So, general rundown, or this op only?
Because general rundown, I probably should just attend the officer meeting and hand it over to one of the Sergeants. This op, however, yeah, I probably should explain it. Frankly, it's counterintuitive on oh so many levels.

[Krrth]

Pack it up boys, we're moving out. I've got a keg of beer for the team that loads the most!

[chiasaur11]

Pack it up boys, we're moving out. I've got a keg of beer for the team that loads the most!

Hey, can you get me a bunch of Eldar tech? I could use a lot of that stuff. Doesn't need to work. Air to ground missiles are a priority.

[Krrth]

Hey, can you get me a bunch of Eldar tech? I could use a lot of that stuff. Doesn't need to work. Air to ground missiles are a priority.

Sir? Are you testing me? I wouldn't have that xeno stuff in my depot. Not only is it heretical and against the Emperor's will, but it would get me shot.

*looks around*

However....I DO have some interesting stuff...I don't know which Craft...I mean, Forge World made it, but all the documentation shows it's approved. Take what you need, just make sure to ..ah..."sign" it out.

[thorgrim29]

Sargent Thorgrim enters the deck shortly after the basilisks' leader, the surviving officer from the two squads he had led during the short lived siege of the armory in tow.

-Hello Sir, Sargent Thorgrim of the 29th reporting, along with my new friend Sgt Harlan of the 50th. Unfortunately, the 51rsth's officer didn't make it.
If i may make a suggestion sir? The troop fought well today, maybe the officers and commissars could attain a special victory meal or something for what, 10 or 12 hours? Leave the troop bays to the troops. A few kegs of booze and Iho sticks might even be misplaced.

[Innis Cabal]

Commander Cabal nodded and gave a slight salute

"Sounds like a plan to me. We're waiting for one of my men to get here. Then we can start the briefing."

[KnightDisciple]

Trooper Knight slowly stretched his aching muscles.
Bloody xenos nearly had me once or twice. Though the compensation is nice....
Looking about for the quartermaster, Knight quietly approaches him once found.
"Ah, hey. Listen. I heard you might have recently gotten a shipment of armor that happens to look an aweful lot like that Tau Stealthsuit Commander type. Know anything about that?"

[Verruckt]

Verrukt listened to the clack of his boots as he walked into the cavernous chamber of living rock that served to contain the rows upon rows of Misfits armor within Starbase Annihilator. Sentinels crouched on their bladed crow-like feet, servitors re-tracking three chimeras. Incense drifted from the niche carved out to contain the regiment's sole Executioner, a rust-robed techpriest was lovingly ministering to its massive plasma gun.

He was heading towards the rear of the vaulted cavern. Here lay ancient and blessed war machines that stretched the lengths of hab blocks. They languished with all the radiance of the Throne itself, anointed with holy unguents and draped with vellum garlands of scripture. Yes, it was safe to say that the Misfits loved their tanks. In one alcove was Verrukt's Marcharius. Her crew and technicians had little to do other than regular maintenance recently. Verrukt looked at his tank and patted the cowling of one massive caterpillar track lovingly. "Your guns have lain silent for to long Ultima, let us hope our commanders give us a chance to fix that soon." He looked over at Goblin's Baneblade and wondered what his commander was up to, hopefully finding a mission that would let the Misfits play the cavalry for once. He sighed and climbed up the hull, stepped over hull stubbers and dropped into the roomy turret. He flopped down into his baby grox leather chair, kicked up his feet on the ottoman, flicked the vox onto the command channel and turned on the caffeine maker Krrth had procured from some manse's parlor years ago. "Crew chief, get me Krrth on the horn, I have an idea for some improvements..."

[Fay Graydon]

Ikaeru walked away from the Vox unit and prayed that the message had gotten through.
A bunch of his men stoop around waiting nervously.
"Sir?" said one gaurdsmen "Is someone coming to save us?"
"I've sent the distress signal... if they do come to our aid then we'll be able to get off this frozen waste land"

Ikaeru looked up... It was snowing... It was always snowing on this Emperor forsaken planet.
A sound started, it was like a tremendous throbbing...
He hauled himself up to the parapets again and glanced out at the battlefield...

What he saw was Hell....

at least A Million Orks thudding their heavy axes into the ground, stomping and firing their guns into the air.
They were working up another WAAAGH.
Panic flashed crossed his face but he quickly regained his composure.

"HIGGS!" He almost screamed "we need that frellin' Baneblade!!!"
Ikaeru knew that the next few days.... they were going to be like an eternity of hell.

[Zenos]

Krahaha heard the tech-priests message on the vox, he found himself a civilian ground vehicle left over and drove as fast as he could (I.E, far over what any speed limit should look like) to recollect his Sentinel.

[Lord Mancow]

Mancow walked onto the command bridge.
"Sorry I'm late Cabal," he said respectively, "Got held up by initiate Wandiya on the way, he was saying something about a ork force that's pinned down a regiment nearby."
He swiftly moved to the briefing table and sat beside Keris, "Ah, Keris! You're just the man that I wanted to see! I've recently been questioned about my conduct recently and it appears that I need to cut down on the flying straight into combat idea and have been told to take a two or three week contemplation of my recent service of the Emperor. During this time I will be unable to command any men so I'm putting you in charge of all resources at my disposal. You can start to command my forces at the next battle. I also humbly apologize for my rash behavior at our last meeting. I can get somewhat carried away with attempting to impress people, I'm sure I've also acquired some of the Misfits' traits."

Mancow then repeated the part about Keris taking command of the Navy to the other officers at the briefing.

[Krrth]

to Trooper Knight:Tau Stealth Commander armor? Don't have any of that, but I do have regular stealth armor. It's not real Tau armor of course-that would be heretical. What I do have is a psi-ops special....it looks like Tau armor so as to ah...confuse..the enemy.


To Verrukt: Yes Sir, what can I do for you?

[Verruckt]

Yes Sir, what can I do for you?

I was just wondering if our stores contained say maybe four of those new pattern assault cannons that use particle induction fields to fire plasma "pulses"? They might be listed as Tau Burst Cannons, but I'm sure that's just a clerical error. Anyway if you do have any on hand I'll need them sent down to deck 5, along with requisite ammunition and fire control systems as well as a couple servitors to set them up for what I have in mind. I can give you a pair of excellently maintained Krieg pattern heavy bolters in return...

[KnightDisciple]

to Trooper Knight:Tau Stealth Commander armor? Don't have any of that, but I do have regular stealth armor. It's not real Tau armor of course-that would be heretical. What I do have is a psi-ops special....it looks like Tau armor so as to ah...confuse..the enemy.


"That, exactly. Think I could come by later to get it, ah, refitted? We might also want to, ah, make sure it's properly marked for our division. Oh, and, um, probably want to give it a good wash inside. Just in case."

[Foeofthelance]

"Oh, Krrth, while everyone is asking for favors, did you by anychance get a hold of any Skybeamer missiles? I've been told by my techpriests that the Machine Spirits of the new tanks you requisitioned for us are very particular about what they will and will not shoot, and the cogboys haven't gotten around to changing that yet. You know the ones the filthy xenos stole the plans for so that they could use them on their Sky Rays?"

Foe turned back towards Colonel Cabal. "Sir, Basilisk Six reports a complete engagement during the last battle. We expended 34% of all amunition stores, and request replacement. We expended 100% of the new Dictionarydade shells as well, but the men report that they handled somewhat oddly, and thus we will not be needing any more. If the Regiment requires us to field test new ammo, we would prefer to do so outside of combat situations. Also would like to note the close kills of five Tau Sky Rays, as well as crews, in close combat actions. Frankly sir, we're the artillery. We're not supposed to be in close combat actions. Require more support to handle that."

"The use of the Thing was also a rousing success, and Emperor be praised it has a fine fighting Machine Spirit. There were some issues with keeping the guns going at high altitudes, but we're working on that by enclosing the gunners areas. I there are any more frames available, we'd like to requisition them. Though do to the sudden nature of the termination of hositilities, we never got a chance to examine the effects. Commander Goblin, could you give us your observations?"

[chiasaur11]

The intercom blared to life.
"Right. Cabal told me to give a briefing on the upcoming rescue mission, as I've been placed in charge of this probable disaster. Anyone not otherwise occupied is to report to the armory. "

Chiasaur clicked off the transmitter. Well, that was done. Now all that was left was breaking the news to the troops there would be no looting, and minimal Xeno killing this operation if the plan worked at all. Well, there was a reason he'd already secured a few battlesuits. And most of the tanks. If one learned anything in the guard, it was how to survive friendly fire.

[Innis Cabal]

Commander Cabal gave a salute to Mancow

"Good to see ya here. You heard my man. Everyone not occupied get to the armory. We've got a plan. When it comes to breaking a seige, you need the big guns."

[Krrth]

Verrukt
You only need four? Help yourself, I've got at least a dozen. I'll get it send down to your vehicle bay right now.


KnightDisciple
Heh...It's being painted now. I've even got something called an "air-freshener" added as well.

Foeofthelance
Skybeamer?...I'm not sure. I've got a bunch of stuff we haven't cataloged yet. You can send someone to check it out, and if they are there, it's yours.

[chiasaur11]

Lt. Chiasaur surveyed the troops in front of him. A mixed bunch, with trained veterans who he'd place money on in a fistfight against Horus in his prime, next to raw recruits who were lucky not to have killed themselves with their lasguns. Heck, he wouldn't have been surprised to see a few Xenos. (Mainly because he had recruited them. Not, as he reflected, his finest hour.) All had two things in common. Enough loyalty to the Imperium not to get shot, and the fact their lives were in his hands. He cleared his throat.

"Right.

We need two groups. Those with experience with Eldar tech and battle strategy, and those without. Basically, at the same time as the Imperial guard unit is rescued by an unarmed but heavily armored transport, a massive Eldar attack hits the Orks. Massive fighting, huge violence, basically the biggest scrap the greenskins have ever seen. As the horde moves in on them, they retreat in the direction of a nearby craftworld. The horde heads for the guys who look like a good fight, leaving a small enough force attacking the guard for the transports to evac, and then we run.

As you may have guessed, we supply the Eldar."

He then said the words which he knew would make him very, very glad for the shielding in between him and the recruits.

"Sadly, as time is of the essence, looting is to be kept to a minimum."

[Verruckt]

Verrukt was minding his own business creating an unholy fusion of Imperial technology and Tau weaponry when the words "We supply the Eldar" drifted over the vox. He spit steaming re-caff all over the wiring of his project and had to quickly beat out a small electrical fire with his hat. He picked up the caster set and stammered "Shall I begin disarming the Gorgons then sir?"

[Lord Mancow]

Mancow acknowledged Cabal and stood up.

"Friends, fellow commanders, the Navy performed very well in the recent battle. The element of surprise allowed us to defeat great numbers of Xeno aircraft and I have it on request from multiple squadron commanders that their thunderbolts, as well as those in their squads be equipped with two or more missile launchers per plane to facilitate a greater ability to tank hunt for ground troops as well the requisite ammunition for infantry killing if necessary. I back their request and wish to requisition these items for the Navy. I would also like to know if we come across any Standard Template Constructs for air to air targeting systems."

He then handed out a data slate to Cabal and Keris.

"This, gentlemen, is the performance of the Navy's fighters and bombers in the most recent action. As you can see we suffered a the loss of 12% of our fighter and 15% of our bombers as well as 8% of the Valkyries, these are planes that were shot down or will require a higher level of mechanical expertise to repair than I have been able to find. A further 10%, 5% and 16% respectively of vehicles were damaged within our ability to repair but will be out of commission for approximately eight days at most. "

Mancow then had an assistant hand out the remaining data slates to the other commanders for observation.

"I appreciate any comments on ways to improve the Lufftwaffe's efficiency."

He then sat down and waited for the next commander's report.

[Innis Cabal]

Commander Cabal took the slate, scanning it over and throwing it to the table, standing up and adjusting his hat.

"Infantry of both heavy and standard regiment suffered a 45% loss on supplies in combat, the numbers lessened by the excellent back up of the Tank divisions.

Our numbers sadly did...well not nearly as well. We suffered heaby casualties at the start of battle. Numbers are comming in now. I estimate we are at 75% fighting capability. Probably less.

On the other hand, the weapons and gear we um...aquired from the Xeno's has greatly been put to use, standard lasguns have been issued as a last resort weapon in at least 6 regiments. The heavy infantry has fared only slightly better. If we were to engage in another sorte...I can not say we will fare well."

Cabal then takes a seat, tipping his hat down.

[chiasaur11]

"No, don't bother Verrukt. We want fast, air capable evac for this, and Gorgons aren't right for that job. You probably have a bunch of tau ships and light fliers half disassembled, so we probably should just slap some PDF paint patterns on those as the Evac craft.

So, to sum up this thing so we don't get any misunderstandings like last time, where someone took 'wait for orders to fire, then ambush the ambassadors, steal the tech, and run' to mean 'Kill the first kroot you see', the plan is: Two teams. One uses Eldar tech to convince the Orks that the Eldar want a good scrap, then run, and leave a nearby craftworld to take the damage. The other uses fliers disguised as unarmed PDF craft to rescue to stranded guard unit, and, if necessary, pick off any Orks not attacking the "Eldar". Any questions?"

[Foeofthelance]

Since there's a good chance that the Tau are going to be pursuing us anyway, do we want to use some of the recently requistioned experimental equipment on the Eldar? That way they can go after the Tau who are coming after us while we lead the Orks to their doorstep. Then we make a clean break for the edge of sector, and clean up what's left.

Oh, and where is the artillery going? We're working on modifiying some of our new vehicles to serve as Things Mk. IIs, codename "These".

[thorgrim29]

-There are no Eldars Foe... we use some of our ahem... requisitioned gear to fake eldar while we disguise dropships as PDF ships ans rescue the boys on the ground. Hopefully, the stupid fungus brains will pursue the "eldar" and let us do what we want.

It's a good plan sir, but I like my imperial gear, do you want me and my squad to take care of a part of the rescue force?

[Zenos]

Krahaha jumped into his sentinel, and put it on a flat-out sprint to get to the other Guard forces. It had been fun walking around torching kroot, but now he could drive around torching kroot!

[chiasaur11]

"Sounds good Thorgrim. Glad someone understands the plan. Also, about the Tau, the fact we're using almost none of the gear we used against them, combined with the slapdash paint jobs and the fact we bombed most of that planet back to the stone age tends to mean we don't have to worry about them yet."

[Innis Cabal]

Commander Cabal reachs across the table, grabbing the Vox Caster

"Are you done with your briefing Lt? I am sure we're all ready to move out and cause some havoc."

[chiasaur11]

"Just about, Sir. So, is the navy getting involved?"

[Fay Graydon]

Higgs had worked his magic... he had managed to get the "Blaineblades" main cannon back on line.
Some members of the 707th had managed to find two "Operational" Leman Russ tanks. (That was the great thing about his boys, they could get just about any vehicle and make it better) Higgs had managed to supervise moving the temperamental gun onto the tanks and they were getting it into position as a bunch of Orks rushed the main gate.

"Bring the wrath of the Emperor down on these Xenos scum!" shouted Ikaeru as the Blaineblade's Mrk I Meteor Cannon burst into life and literally ripped the gate apart and the Orks with it.

"Back into the secondary defences!" Cryed the Major as Orks flooded in through the newly made hole...
Ikaeru increased the power output on his custom made Laspistols to max and proceded to take down an Ork at a time with powerful shots.

The 707th reteaded further into the giant cliff face fort.
Shots dinged here and thier but his men made sure they didnt die without taking at least ten Orks minimum with them.... each man made about fifty before getting hit.
Ikaeru was the last into the secondary defences and he slammed the giant thick doors behind him before sucuring them and proceeding to drive his power gauntleted fist into one of the few Orks that ad made it inside...

It was over... for now...

As Ikaeru did a role call he found out that he had only lost twenty six men... that left around five hundred left.
He was also glad to see his.... Blaineblade had made it too.

[WychWeird]

On his return, WychWeird had set about ensuring the Misfit's vehicles were ready to return to the battlefield.

A voice barked out of the voxcaster, "Are you done with your briefing Lt? I am sure we're all ready to move out and cause some havoc."

"Vehicles ready. You have an additional asset available, the Warhound, which, for some reason one of the Guardsmen has called Wuffles, has been annointed with the ritual oils and lubrications and is thus ready for deployment." WychWeird turned and inspected his servitors; perhaps he ought to take the Praetorian with him this time.

[Zenos]

Krahaha voxed to Wychwierd and said, "thank you mate! May the Omnissiah grant you a long and fulfilling existence."

[Moonlitrebel]

After hearing the lieutenant brief the troops about their next mission, Trooper Moon promptly spoke up.

"If its okay with you sir, I will be part of the Evac team, Sir!"

Sometimes he wondered how he got himself mixed in with this regiment, Their penchant for using heretical and Xenos weaponry was... Disturbing. But he kept that unspoken. All he knew was that he would be dead and gone before using Xenos armor and weaponry, and he sure didn't intend to be dead anytime soon. Besides, he loved his flamer too much to let it go, ever. Even for one mission.

[Raroy]

Ralvious was surprised by this regiments methods. Their tactics, their style, their salvaging, it certainly not the kind of military he thought it would be. Of course, the horror of battle had stricken him. Most of his own squad were eviscerated or blasted into dust. That one guy he-sorta-kinda knew died as well. Sad, although, if he had not died Ralvious would not have been able to use his heavy weapon which saved his life. Unsurprisingly, the heavy weapon was....heavy, so he had to leave it behind.

He had found an interesting book. A tau to human dictionary. He kept his mind off the carnage during evac while taking peaks at it. Some of the basics of greeting words were elaborate tongue twisters that even a....some sort of machine....could not pronounce. "Ki.....Ke....Kie...ugh. Maybe later."

[Zenos]

Krahaha came over a guardsman reading some kind of dictionary. He peeked out over the edge of his sentinel, and asked, "Interesting reading soldier?"

[Raroy]

Raroy responded without looking up, "I'm just the kind of person who is interested in reading dictionaries." He let out a sigh and tried to locate the source of the voice. When he spotted the man in the walking tank, he let out a contented smile. "You know, I've never seen these things up close. They are very....majestic?" Raroy pondered to himself if that was a proper word to use.

[thorgrim29]

-Well then, I take everyone understands the plan, and i wont get a book on the head in lieu of a signal this time?

An experienced soldier, Thorgrim knows that no plan survives the first minutes of combat intact, but usually the combat actually starts before he has to improvise...

[Innis Cabal]

Commander Cabal rose from the table

"If that is everything gentlemen? I am going to get ready."

Commander Cabal then goes to the docking station, waiting for his men

[Verruckt]

Verrukt approached Cabal as they both arrived in the docking station. "Sir, the Navy boys and I took the liberty of modifying a pair of our most recent acquisitions into useful assets for the task at hand. I think you'll be pleased" He gestured out the Force Wall that made up one side of the huge chamber as two objects came into view. They were huge. They were armed. They looked for all the world like a pair of Tau Mantas painted to look as if they were owned by the Polaris V PDF. "We added some big blocky metal bits to make them look a bit more Imperial and stripped out the interior partition to make room for any super heavies they might have still operational. All told we more than doubled their carrying capacity just by getting rid of those odd inertia couches their previous owners used and replacing them with good old fashioned Imperial Issue crash harness webbing. It's not comfy but it's a damn good way to pull a lot of men of planet fast."

[chiasaur11]

"I have to say, I'm impressed. Few PDFs have tech this PDF-y looking. And I feel safe in saying none of them have anything that can do the amount damage these things are capable of. Nice to have such competent mechanics. With these things, the whole plan might not end in horrible firey death. Or, at least not for us. Hopefully it will end in fire for the enemy. Anyway, good work."

"Right then. You want to name one of these?"

[Innis Cabal]

Commander Cabal removed a cigar from his uniform, handing another to the Lt.

"Its so beautiful. Name an' board em. We're movin out."

[Zenos]

Krahaha called out WychWierd on the vox, "Techpriest, could you help me install my newly acquired rail rifle? It's perfectly imperial, it has a skull mounted on it? Disregard the copper wire and tape holding the skull and the rifle itself together, it wasn't properly attached, so I did the Emergency Ritual of Gaffa Tape."

[Fay Graydon]

Ikaeru watched as the disfigured "Blaineblade" was taken appart including the two Leman Russ battle tanks and was quickly put back together and welded strong by Higgs and the men who new more than they should about tanks...
Ikaeru then gazed in awe at the newly constructed Super Heavy Blaineblade in front of him...
The 707th had managed to barricade themselves in and the Orks had seemed to pull back... which meant that they were probably getting a Squiggoth.
Ikaeru sighed and joined his men in toasting the Emperor and the fact they were still alive.
He wondered how long the Misfits were going to take and realized that they were probably going through the whole all deal of discussing the situation.
Despite this he sat next to the Huge Vox Caster that allowed inter-planetary communication and hoped that he would here something, anything get emitted from the speakers.
Even still he cleaned his Power Gauntlets nervously.

"Is everything okay sir?" asked McAbbith.
McAbbith was the best sharpshooter in Ikaeru's regiment, he could take down a bug from a mile away and not even have to try... if there was anybody Ikaeru wanted to be near when the shots flied it would be him.
"Everything's fine McAbbith, I'm just hoping to hear something from the Misfits..."
McAbbith sat next to Ikaeru and Ikaeru made a mental note to have McAbbith promoted... if either of them lived...

[Foeofthelance]

"Alright boys, there's going to be some quick moving on this mission," Foe declared as he stepped into the Lizards' ready room. "So we're not going to have time to- What the hell is going on?"

The tables, usually scattered about as gun crews hung out, had been pulled into the center of the room to form a single massive one. Gathered around the table was the entire troop, as well as about twenty Tau in standard Imperial techsuits. Everyone had a hand of cards, and there was a large pile of shiny metal bits and credit chips sitting in the center of the table.

"Er, we can explain sir," Sergeant Rutherford answered as he saw the disapproving look on his CO's face. "We know you told us to shoot them, but you told us to keep three, and well, we didn't know what they know, so we figured we'd interrogate them later. But there's more systems on those things than we accounted for, and-"

"I don't mean the xenos, Sergeant!" Foe snapped. "I mean who gave you permission to start a game without me?"

"Er, sorry, sir?" Ruthoerford ventured.

"Forget about it Sergeant," Foe waved it off. "Now explain the xenos. There's an Inquisitor onboard, and I'd really prefer not to get him pissed off. Please tell me that they are in standard issue tech uniforms because we are short prisoner outfits?"

"Er, we are?" Rutherford asked in confusion. "But-"

"I'll not the lack of proper outfits and bring it to the Quartermaster's attention later," Foe continued. 'As in never!' "And I take it that the reason you are all gathered here is to keep an eye on the xeno prisoners?"

"We are?" Rutherford's look of confusion got worse.

"Good!" Foe said with a beaming smile. "Glad to know you chaps are keeping to the regulations as properly as possible. Now, as I was saying, there's an upcoming mission, but we can't deploy normally. So instead I need a couple of the Basilisks modified, as well as the Thing prepped, and-"

"Er, sir?" Rutherford interrupted. "Permission to speak?"

"Go ahead, Rutherford."

"Well, it's like this sir," Rutherford said hesitantly. "We were giving the techs here a good going over after we got them on the ship, telling them how it was for the greater good of the Imperium and all that, and the bunch of them started chattering away. Next thing we know we're all ankle deep in flying parts and they're setting to those Sky Rays of theirs with a passion. Well sir, simple story is, they, um, got changed. We might be able to use them on the mission now."

Foe stared at his subordinate. "Show me."


----------------

Foe stared at the four Sky Rays in open shock. The missile mounts had been hacked off one way or another, only to have them replaced by the main guns from a Minotaur heavy platform on the rotating mount where the laser designators had been. The rear wings had been replaced with targeting sensors and long distance radar dishes cobbled together from spare parts. Topping it off was a complicated looking reloading system that seemed to store the ammo internally.

But the nose guns were still there.

"They're fully flight capable sir," Rutherford explained. "They got all excited about the prospects inherent from the Thing, and apparently they weren't too fond of their missiles. Too slow to reload. Even got 'em to reprogram the systems for Gothic. Had 'em go over the Thing as well. Kept a real careful eye on 'em though. Should be safe as anything else in a hostile combat environment."

Foe shook his head as he stared at the craft. They looked sleek enough to fly, but had the usual bluntness of form that most Imperial craft demonstrated. As far as camouflage went, they were almost perfect. "Boys, I do believe we have once more redefined the role of flying artillery on the battlefield. Suit up the crews then, its almost time to launch."

[chiasaur11]

Chiasaur looked out into the void. FTL might be travel through the dimensions of deepest evil and the doom of mankind, but it was strangely... okay. Now he could see why everyone else never looked out the window. He was reasonably sure that wasn't physically possible. At least he hoped it wasn't. The Orks would, frankly, be a relief.

Well, at least it was time to catch up on his reading. Stealing Saint Cain's memoirs from the Inquisitor was probably not the best decision he'd made, but it was totally worth it.

[thorgrim29]

-Well then, party after the rescue mission I guess, too bad.

ALRIGHT 29th, ATTENTION!

We, gentleman, are on evac duty. But, since we are the best the Misfits have to offer, we get the hard part of evac duty, namely, finding out who the greenskins leave in charge when they run after the "eldar", if they do, and engage and kill the overgrown mushroom. So what I want all of you to do now is practice your hand to hand combat and the standard chainsword vs choppa tactics, also, try to get a few moments of practice with the orc dummies, make sure you have the targets memorized perfectly, and practice aiming for small, moving critical parts in orc "tech". I also want each of you to read Commissar Yarrick's "So, you're fighting the green tide" before the battle, I beleive we have an audiobook version somewhere. And if the artillery shot out all our copies I'll have the officer in charge's hide.

[Raroy]

Raroy was browsing through a pile of war gear. It felt strange, as if he was buying this stuff, but instead of some kind of currency, he just had to request them. The surplus of it all just seemed out of place, how do the misfits keep this up anyway? He tried on a strange helmet, it was a little too tall for him, but stout enough. The helmet popped out a tinted screen from the edge of the inside that covered Raroy's eyes. It seemed to relax him, a series of small words appeared on the screen, legible enough. At the top it had "Touch to choice options" blinking in blue text. Raroy cautiously put a finger to it, a layout of words in columns, options, appeared, each spaced out and not distracting enough to simplify use. X-ray, heat vision, night vision, ect. Real nonstandard stuff.

There were weapons and armors that are simply better than what the fresh recruits had. If you survive, you get new toys to play with. These seemed to be the rules of this place, this playground of destruction. Raroy was just along for the ride. Beats having no home he thought to himself. Does it? Raroy just shook his head. He decided on the plasma pistol as a weapon, but was that all he would need? If he were to survive, he would need more. He picked up a tau rifle and examined it. "I don't even know how to use one of these things."

[Moonlitrebel]

Trooper moon lit a lho stick as he walked along towards the transports that would take him to his next mission. he figured he had a bit of time before takeoff. He could afford a little bit of relaxation.

As he walked by he saw Raroy, goofing around with the surplus wargear in the stockroom. He saw the soldier goofing around with a tau weapon, and he decided to bust the lad's chops a bit.

"Crazy gun, isn't that?" he said. "I wouldn't use one in a million years, but they sure do the job well. They fething kick like a Grox though."

[Krrth]

Hey! You two! Yes you. What in the Emperors Name are you doing in my storeroom? Out! Out! I have to account for this stuff, you know.

[Moonlitrebel]

Moon shrugged his shoulders.

"We ain't causing any trouble, sir. We're just browsing the inventory, looking for something to buy. You wouldn't want to chase off a prospective customer, would you?"

He then realized he still had a lit lho stick in his mouth near all the sensitive weaponry. he quickly put it out on his leg. boy that one hurt.

[Krrth]

Customer! Buy! Are you implying that I *SELL* equipment that doesn't belong to me?!? Selling Imperial Equipment without permission...Gets. A. Person. Shot.


I swear, you must have Ogryn DNA or something. Now get out, and don't come back unless you have a signed requisition form.

[Zenos]

Sentinel pilot Sergeant Krahaha walked into the storage room, shouting, "Krrth, do you happen to have any of those rail rifles which are totally imperial and all that? I would kinda like it if I could have a pair mounted on my sentinel, to engage those I cannot BURN my heavy flamers."

[Krrth]

*stops ranting at Moonlitrebel*

You mean the Imperial Railgun mk 1, personal, or the Imperial railgun mk2, vehicle? I've got both. Leave the signed form on my desk, ok?...or if you'd like, come back this evening and we'll see what else we might have in storage that you can use.

*goes back to ranting at Moonlitrebel*

[Moonlitrebel]

"whoah, whoah, whoah, sorry, i didnt mean to imply that you "sell" items" Trooper Moon stammered.
"Its just some terminology from my old regiment. You see, requisition forms were like currency there!"

"but we don't mean any trouble. actually, i was just looking to see if you had any attire that might fit me better than these old rags"

he pointed at Raroy. "and look at him! his lasgun is in the worst shape i have ever seen! obviously he is looking for a better weapon to upgrade! "

This regiment was so weird. even though he had been with the misfits for years, he hadn't gotten used to their.. quirks. sometimes he wished he was back with his old regiment. then he remembered that that were all vaporized, caught in a trap by chaos cultists many many years ago. he muttered some colorful language about the pencil pusher who decided to merge the remnants of his regiment in with the misfits.

[Krrth]

*calms down*

Sorry, I'm a little touchy about things like that. My old boss was executed for "selling" merchandise.

*pause*

Ok, you want better armor? What were you looking for?

Raroy
And what kind of weapon were you looking for, anyways?

[Moonlitrebel]

Trooper moon saluted.

" No problem sir! entirely my fault! You had every right to be angry sir!"

he pulled out a requisition form.

"let's see... if you have it, i'd like some cadian style flak armor, sir!"

and as he looked around he saw something he didn't expect in the storeroom. a red beret. he knew people would think he was nuts for choosing it over a helmet, but he just HAD to have it. he grabbed it.

"and this too, sir!"

[Raroy]

Raroy was slightly stunned by the stream of people. All he could do was let out a soft laugh. "Well...um...sir, I'm not really a rough and tough guy myself. I rather not get too messy, so something ranged and some utility to it." Raroy, thought about all the talk that was thrown around. Best not too interpret much of it.

[Zenos]

Krahaha slapped the form on the desk, saying, "Personal railguns, sir, they are lighter and in my eyes better fit for a sentinel."

[Krrth]

Zenos
*Glances at the form* Alright this says you can draw up to four, plus 25 rounds each. You're on your own for the fire control system, though. You might want to talk to the "new recruits" working over in the vehicle bay.

Raroy
Ranged, and with utility....hmmmm...let me think..I've got missile launchers, grenade launchers, plasma rifles, flamers, sniper rifles, and um....newly issued Imperial Rail Guns.

Moonlitrebel
we'll just forget it ever happened, ok? No sense in fighting amongst ourselves. Ok, armor...I've got plenty. Carapace armor, flak armor, newly issued psy-ops "Tau replica armor", and um...well, most of the rest is for officers, I'm afraid.

[Moonlitrebel]

Trooper Moon smiled.

"No problem sir! Carapace armor it shall be sir!"

he looked at Raroy.

"My suggestion is the flamer. Nothin' gets them nice and toasty like this does!" he patted his flamer lovingly.

"Except maybe a heavy flamer."

[Krrth]

Carapace it is. As for heavy flamers, those I have. Third shelf on the right.

[Verruckt]

"The one to the left is Dai'Gurren, the other is Dai'Ganzan. Well that's what the New Recruits call them anyway, I'm sure we can re-christen them something more appropriate en route. Frankly the new adepts from the Adeptus Earth and Air, um... Caste-icus? Any way, they're to be commended, even if I do get tired of being called "The Gue'vesa'ui" behind my back."

[Raroy]

Raroy put his arms up in protest. "No flamers thank you. I don't like the smell of burnt flesh in the morning." He thought about what to take for a few seconds before answering. "I'll take the sniper rifle, a plasma pistol, this one helmet I have here, and some of that Cadian ar..um..oh, nothing too heavy?"

[Krrth]

That's fine, just make sure to sign them out in the log, and make sure to turn them back in when you are done.

[Lord Mancow]

Mancow walked into the stockroom.

"Ah! Krrth my good man! Could I have a quick talk to you?"

"I'm here to requisition some of those new XImpericus experimental battle suits. I believe that we recovered them from the foul Xeno thieves in our last mission did we not? I'm requisitioning them for ship defense."

"I am also going to requisition some of those newly sent burst weapons that fire ionized plasma at His most Doomed enemies."

Mancow began walking away but then turned back to look Krrth in the eye.

"I expect them to be at the launch bays by 1500 hours tomorrow."

Mancow them went to the bridge of the starbase and ordered a fleet wide communicae.

"All guardsmen interested in joining a elite Valkyrie and drop pod force are to assemble at bay B153 at 1200 hours one week from now."

[Krrth]

Yeah, I got the paperwork. Send your men down for them, I'll have them at the loading dock waiting for you.

[Moonlitrebel]

Moon looked at the heavy flamers. they were shiny. and pretty. and tempting....

but he couldn't bear to get rid of his normal flamer. it had helped him out of so many jams, and he had grown too accustomed to it.

"Maybe I'll come back later for the heavy flamers", he said. "Ill just take the carapace and the beret right now."

[Zenos]

Krahaha walked over to the new recruits and asked them about fire control systems for a railgun quad-mount for his sentinel. He waited whilst they were thinking. He didn't notice anything strange as he was daydreaming about blowing stuff up with railrifles.

[Krrth]

Right. That falls under your issued equipment, so just sign it out in the log. Remember, you get one "suit" of armor, one hand weapon, and one firearm.

[Raroy]

Raroy just decided to keep his normal, lighter armor. He didn't plan to get into much combat. The forums were signed and turned in, and he was out.

[Foeofthelance]

Foe shook his head as one of the Sentinel pilots dropped a load of personal railguns at the feet of the newly christened Adeptus Terrus maintence squad (and the enginseers and techpriests were already giving him fits about letting them have first go at the recently "recaptured" equipment.) The pilot scampered off, only to return a few minutes later carefully piloting his Sentinel between the massive treads of the parked Basilisks. He knelt the death dealing walker, fresh paint marking its more recent kills, right in the middle of the huddled techs, who began chattering and pointing wildly at the guns and at the mech. A few moments of frantic pointing and they all scattered off in different directions, about half returning with blow torches and wiring and the other half with associated spare parts

"What's your name, son?" Foe asked as he walked over to the stunned Sentinel pilot.

"Er, Zenos, sir. Are they always like this?"

"Pretty much, yeah," Foe agreed. "They can't seem to turn down a homemade project. Very hands on types."

"Wait, what are they- No, not the flamers!" Zenos protested as the Adeptus Terrus squad began to dissassemble the heavy weapons.

"Just watch," Foe said as he patted the pilot on the shoulder. Even as the flamers were disconnected more parts were being added on, including large rotating turret mounts on the side, and smaller weapons pods on the bottom. Twenty minutes later and rail guns and flamers were all remounted, two of the rail guns on each side and capable of firing in any direction with proper rotation and angling, and the twin barrels of the flamers seperated out into two seperate mounts, capable of firing and aiming independently of one another.

One of the blue skinned techs dropped off the Sentinel's legs as they finished putting it through its test paces. "You like this build, yes? We apologize for the lack of autoloaders for the rail guns. Best we could manage is an automatic magazine feed. Seven shots a barrel, but barrels are twin linked, yes? So really seven shots a side, too. Flamers have bigger tank, fire longer. Also fire seperately, burn more targets. You like?"

Foe shook his head as the flabbergasted pilot tried to find his tongue. It could take the enginseers days just to alter a paint scheme, much less the radical overhaul the Adeptus boys had just done. Leaving the pilot in their capable hands, he wandered off to the supply room.

"Krrth! A quick heads up, I don't need those missiles any longer, though we are gonna need to up the ammo count on my Earthshaker rounds, probably about ten times as much if what the new techs showed me is right... Oh, also going to need some assault cannon ammo for compatability tests. About ten thousand rounds or so..."

[Zenos]

Krahaha stood with crossed arms, he didn't like the modifications. "Monsieur, with all due respect, I don't really like how this looks."

[Moonlitrebel]

Moon looked at himself in the mirror, and he had to say, he looked quite sharp. the carapace armor fit him much better then his old armor did. he slid on his beret. Perfect.

"Watch out ladies!" Trooper Moon muttered to no one in particular. "Illiya Moon is on the prowl!"

He then hurried off to the transports so he wouldnt be left behind when the fun started.

[Baxter190]

ALright," lets get going," the commisar said to no one in particular, obviously a littl drunk. As he wobbled around on his way to his chimera before the battle began, he could be seen wearing an odd assortment of gear, his visage one that would give a inquisitor a heart attack at the heresy. Though he wore his standard commisar gear for the most part, there were obvious problems with his weaponry choice. Though his commisar hat was on top, below it was a colonol hat, a lt. hat, and for soem reason, an eldar guardian helmet that wouldn't fit on his head for it was too small. With the helmet unable to fit over his head, his blonde hair was sticking out from under it, uncombed and defieing rCommissar rule # 2678.346, on startdard non-heretical hari cuts. His hair reached down over his ears, and began to go over his brow, and half-way obscured his borwmn eyes, which saw everything through bear goggles.

Stubling to his chemra, over his black cape, a tau railrifle could be seen straped to his back, and an eldar shuriken catapult on his leg where his standard issue bolter pistol shoudl be. The only non-heetical weapon he had was his chain sword in its guard on his left leg, ready for combat the moment the commissar saw heresy or weakness in his men. Looking over to Foe, he said in the most commissar-eske voice he could muster at the time, "Foe, your with me. We're going to go kill sh!t today."

[Verruckt]

Verrukt could only watch in awe as his beloved Commissar stumbled past him, drunker than a lobo'd grox and wearing what one might describe as a festival of hats.

"Oh God Emperor on Terra... Cabal sir, he's with you." Before the Colonel or anyone else could protest he disappeared down a docking tube and into one of the PDF's Mantas.

[WychWeird]

WychWeird walked up alongside Krahaha, looked at the Sentinel and sighed. How many times must the Misfits be told that tinkering with the heavy equipment really annoyed him. He stared at the Sentinel as he spoke, "That is outrageous, you've not performed the correct rituals to initiate this Beloved Equipment. You do it for all your other armour and you shouldd do it for the Sentinels as well. They are entitled to equal rites." He indicated a servitor that had followed him to the bay. "And my servitor here has an improved targetting matrix." He looked Krahaha up and down, sizing him up, "Which could be made so much better with some minor cortical implants to a willing crewman?"

[Zenos]

Krahaha didn't listen to the Tech-Priest, and walked over to those New Recruits. "That is not at all how i want it to be! How could you interpret my clear request to have the four rail rifles I requisitioned from Krrth mounted on my sentinel and not only install just two of them, but also adding a secondary flamer. It's blodoy outrageous!" He was waving his fist near the face of one of them.

[Foeofthelance]

'Yup, he's drunk again,' Foe thought to himself as he scrambled back to the Lizards' compartment. Thumbing his vox he quickly began to bark orders. "Spool up the Thing and get those, er Other Things spooled up too! Full ammo load outs on each, I don't care what you have to fill in to get it to stock just do it. The Commissar is getting ready to launch early, and we're playing cover. Oh, and someone get Mancow on the line, and tell him that the Commissar is starting the show early! Emperor bless us, He knows we don't need a territory fight with the airwing over this. Besides, we're better at nailing things on the ground, best to leave the furballs to the flyboys. Get to it!"

As he dashed into the hangar, he saw the Sentinel pilot from earlier arguing with a tech priest and the new techs. He blew a harsh whistle, which only the techs seemed to hear. "Whatever it is, get it fixed, and do it right! We're shoving out fast, Commissar's orders!"

[Baxter190]

Finally stumbling into his chimera, the Commissar grabbed his vox, and annouced into it, "Hey yall, lets do this! Lets purge some Emporer, and praise soem Xeno! Oh wait, other way around." Then realizing where he was, he asked, "Could one of the fly boys get me groud side? Also, could I get a driver for my chimera? The mechanus said they'd take my liscence away if they cuaght me drving a His holy's most precious vehicle's drunk again."

[Innis Cabal]

Commander Cabal liked these "new" manta's. Such wonderful artmanship the techpriests were learning. Then the commisar burst over the vox

"You there. This isn't time to be drinking. What will the troops say."

[Baxter190]

Stumpted by the colonol's question, the drunk commissar thought for a couple of seconds before replying like a smartass, "That I'm the commissar and can shoot them if they say anything I don't want to hear? Or they may very well think I'm planning on going on a blaze of glory rn. I always get toasted before I do one of those."

[Verruckt]

Verrukt rested his feet on the targeting array of Dai'Gurren, listened to the Commissar talk and giggled like a scholam girl. He'd heard drunk men slur, hell he'd almost lost his command when his inebriated directions ended up causing a hellhound to improperly interface with a small cottage out in the hinterlands of Porfol IX. Then there had been that incident involving a demolisher shell and an Orphanarium roof, or the time when an "accidental" lascannon discharge had caused the catastrophic collapse of one wall of the Sisters of Battle showers...

He digressed, he'd never heard a man so drunk the he actually appeared to be subtracting letters from his words, truncating from the middle as opposed to adding to the end. He turned up the channel and started doing a weapons systems check before take off. This was going to be interesting in deed.

[chiasaur11]

Lt. CHiasaur carefully landed the "PDF Transport". It seemed the Orks were briefly pausing the assault. This was probably just as well, as Chiasaur had left early on seeing the Commissar downing the Amasec like there was no tomorrow. It was hard enough to get him to understand a plan other than "Shoot it again" when he was sober. It seemed a good idea to Evac the most critical personnel BEFORE a manual exterminatus got started.

"Hey, you, the guard unit who has long since passed the point where they care who provides evac? We got your angels right here. Any takers?"

[Moonlitrebel]

Trooper Moon removed himself from the harness as Lt. Chiasaur landed the transport. he had barely made it there in time after the incident in the stockroom. he made sure his weapon was still in proper working order, and adjusted his new beret.

"So whats the plan, boss?" He asked the Lt.

[KnightDisciple]

Trooper Knight decided to go with the actual rescue party this time. The suit of "experimental armor" he had his eye on wasn't done being washed and refitted yet.
-----
Trooper Knight quickly hopped out of the "PDF" transport and took up a guard position just outside the door. He'd let the Lt. do the talking. He'd do the watching and shooting.
Turning to Moon, "Step one, kid: keep your eyes peeled."

[Moonlitrebel]

"Of course!" Trooper Moon smartly replied. He didn't rankle at being called a kid, like some would. He took up a position outside the transport, wary for orks.

"From what I heard, they would be all over the place? I dont see any here."

[KnightDisciple]

Knight grunted.
"Either something's up, or we're behind a somewhat decent line of defense. Or too far from the fighting."
Knight scanned around, looking for signs of anything.


(Too lazy to write up "ork attack!" right now. :smalltongue: )

[Moonlitrebel]

(same here, lol)

"Well, if there's anything that can be said about orks, it's that there's no predicting them." Moon muttered.
"Best keep our eyes peeled. I just hope we aren't too late."

[Fay Graydon]

Major Ikaeru Blaine opened the doors and he and his men moved out to great their saviors.
The great beast of a repaired super heavy rolled out after them.
Ikaeru barked orders to his men and looked between Lt. Chiasaur Trooper Moon and Trooper Knight.
He then addressed Lt. Chiasaur formally.

"Major Ikaeru Blaine of the 707th Heavy Tank Company, Officially requesting Evac ASAP"
Ikaeru then dropped the formallities. "Boy am I glad to see you boys..."

Just then the 707ths best sniper McAbbith shouted
"Major! the Orks are launching another-"
He was drowned out by the sound of thousands of Orks screaming a WAAAGH.
"Damn!, by the Emperors grace!" said Ikaeru "get my men out as quickly as you can! I'll help hold them off with anyone who will help. Higgs! get the Blaineblade into possition! Boys set weapon power to max!"
Ikaeru cracked his power-gauntlet knuckles and pulled out his over sized laspistols.
"For the Emperor!"

[Verruckt]

The first manta had set down and beleaguered guardsmen were already rushing out towards its welcoming hold. The orks were conspicuously absent from the immediate area. One of the navy boys tapped the New Recruit at the controls on the shoulder and pointed towards a suitable expanse of flat terrain. "Bring her down ove-"

His words were lost in a sound that made the windows rattle in their frames. A low roar that resonated in the sternum and made one's ribs hum. The gut squirming howl of hundreds of orks screaming WAAAGH!

The potential LZ was turning green. Orks flooded the expanse, charging towards the already landed manta and the Guardsmen with their tank. One of the New Recruits was screaming at Verrukt. "Gue'vesa'ui, we're already committed! this will be rough!" Verrukt started hitting Tau icons at random, the Gothic labels had yet to be installed. One lucky press elicited a screech of discharging capacitors as both of the manta's colossal railguns kicked out twin chunks of xenos metal at obscene velocities.

The guns dug a pair of channels through the horde. Red mist and green limbs flew in all directions. A second later Verrukt had found the button for the over-sized burst cannons and a withering hail of plasma pulses rained into the ork ranks. To little, to late. The Manta bellied into the tide of green flesh and teeth. Shoota rounds popped and spalled of the armor slabs added hours earlier in orbit. One of the landing struts struck a Killa Kan, detonating the ork machine and shearing off the support. The manta slewed left, one curved wing throwing up a thick spume of soil and screaming grots.

Verrukt came to under the red glow of emergency lighting. One navy trooper was plainly dead, his torso transfixed the cockpit glass, his legs inside the manta and the rest of him dangling on the nose. It took him a moment to recognize the voice of the New Recruit.
"Weapons still online, Life support is still void capable, engines..."
"Engines what?"
The Tau looked at Verrukt with naked fear in his eyes "Engines will need fifteen of your minutes to come online, and we'll need to get ontop of the Manta to fix them..."

[chiasaur11]

Chiasaur saw the second Manta come crashing towards the Ork horde. Not his dream distraction, but...

"Allright. Any unusable but repairable gear, wounded troops, and other currently non-essential gear, get into the evac ship. We don't have all day. In fact, I don't think we have five minutes! We are getting the first load of local troops out of here right now. Am I clear?"

[Krrth]

To Chiasaur and Verrukt


Sirs? I was hoping to save this for later, but I have a set of Terminator armor that the space marines left behind when we encountered them a few campaigns ago. It's up and running...including the teleportation system. I can send it down right now if you need it.

[Ash08]

Brother Cuisnares here with some rations!WHo wants some, the veggie like substance is fresh from the agriworlds. We got water gel, and protien blocks! Come on down to the base's kitchens!

[Foeofthelance]

"Damnit, where's Mancow and that air support?" Foe yelled into the vox as he saw one of the Manta's begin to drop in a way it wasn't designed to. "Those are transports, not battle hulls! Lizards, drop into formation, fire as you go. If it's green, it bleeds! Shoot anything green!"

"Um, sir?" Sgt. Rutherford asked. "It's a jungle down there. Most of it is green!"

"Um, well, right!" Foe corrected himself. The Thing bucked as both Earthshakers fired, but this time the recoil wasn't as bad and he managed to keep control of the craft. Looks like that at least had gotten fixed. Down on the ground a squad of choppas had a very eventful, yet sadly brief, lesson in flight coupled with an even more painful one in internal anatomy. "Well, then make it not green! Incinedary rounds if you got 'em!"

"Really?" Rutherford's voice was way too eager. "Alright boys, you heard the man! Let the heavens rain FIRE!"

'Emperor on the Throne, what have I done?' Foe moaned inwardly as the ground beneath began to blossom into a wall of fire in the middle of the orc lines. It wouldn't burn forever, but it cut about half of the horde in half. That would make it easier for the boots at least.

Suddenly the sky was filled with black smoke and whistling shells as the orks realized there was something above them that needed shooting down...

[Raroy]

Raroy was deployed and out on the battle field. The area felt small and closed in, like the Orks were to come in and suffocate them in a charge of oxygen-depraved....ness. He heard the waaagh! an echo of the chaos that was to come. All he could do was take a deep breath and aim his sniper. In his scope, he quickly found a dose of ugly. A bullet zipped through the Ork's throat, causing it to keel over and die. "Well this isn't so bad.... Here I was thinking that they would overwhelm....." Raroy put his scope down. How did they get that close that quickly!?

An overhead bombardment flew through the air. It caused many chunks of the Orks to be detoured. "Better. Can one of you crazy guys who are well too into this killing stuff tell me which orcs are the important ones? They all look alike to me..."

[chiasaur11]

"Yes! You are the best Rec officer ever. Load someone who can use the termies into one and deploy it over here right now! Remind me to thank you for this later."

Chiasaur turned past the transport, currently being loaded with the wounded toward the rapidly approaching horde. He began walking very quickly back toward the transport. If this didn't call for one of the new heavy Battlesuit, then the thing would sit unused till a one man raid on a Necron tomb world.

[Moonlitrebel]

Trooper Moon laughed as he roasted a group of slugga boyz.

"Its pretty simple, really. you find the biggest fething orks you've ever seen. they're the important ones!"
he stopped to dig his warknife into the head of another ork. Suddenly the orks around him parted, and he was face to face with a giant, particularly ugly, Nob.

"like this one, for example!" he exclaimed. he brought his flamer around and sent a concentrated stream of flame to the brute. he squealed but stayed upright. So Moon grabbed his warknife and drove it down right into the brute's exposed forehead. Finally the Xenos fell. Trooper Moon gave him a kick for good measure. Unfortunately he happened to kick the carcass square in the ork's metal jaw, and Moon grimaced in pain.

[KnightDisciple]

Trooper Knight barely let his finger leave the trigger.
'So many of them!'
Even though he'd fought the greenskins before, their numbers always took him aback.
"Like he said. Start big, and work your way down."
A small arc of clearing had formed in front of the trooper, anything orky getting cut down by the hellgun on full auto. But how long the ammo would last...

[Moonlitrebel]

Between Trooper Knight's Hellgun, and Trooper Moon's flamer, they cut a swath across the front of the transport, as the members of the 707th piled in. But Trooper Moon knew it was only a matter of time before they ran out of ammo. They needed their distraction, and fast. He just prayed they'd be able to lift off soon.

[Krrth]

Will do, Sir.


*Finds someone...anyone who can use the damn thing. When it teleports into the fray, it's equipped with a lightning claw and an assault cannon. A literal hail of bullets tears into the Orks around the Manta*

[Fay Graydon]

Ikaeru Placed his shots with ease, although he quickly realized that his Laspistols were doing hardly anything to the Green skinned Xenos.
"Feth" he said as he holstered the guns and smashed the face of the nearest Ork into the back of its skull.
He grabbed another head and crushed it with difficulty as he felt a round or two pierce his shoulder.
He winced at the pain and literally ripped off an Ork's head who happened to be nearby.
A beeping sound was emitted from his power gauntlets and he new that they needed some more energy cells.

"Mr. Krrth" Ikaeru yelled over a vox caster "I need a few powercells... or some other big nasty mellee weapon! ASAP if you would please"
Ikaeru ran forward and yanked the nearest hatch off of the downed Manta.
"We need to get back to the transport! set the detonation timer and get out of there!" He yelled "But if you think you can get this thing back up and fast 'll hold off the Green skins!"

[thorgrim29]

-Frak, what happened to our distraction? Never mind, 29th forward.

Ushered by trooper Moon's flamer, the 29th cut a sticky green swathe in the orc lines. the few xeno who approached the squad were cut in many different bits by chainswords. Then, they saw It. An ork boss, 9 feet tall, 5 wide, encased in slapdash power armor, wielding a power claw and what looked to be an autocannon. The ork first completely destroyed a squad of guardsmen, and was still stomping the cadavers in glee when it was engulfed in trooper moon's flames. The only effect seemed to be that he was slightly singed, but apparently his ammunition cannister had melted enough for the cannon to explode when the ork tried to use it. Short one forearm, the still formidable and enraged ork charged the 29th under an hail of hellgun fire.

[Moonlitrebel]

"Woot!" Trooper Moon hollers as he saw the warboss' weapon explode.
"that had to have done some damage!"
Suddenly the warboss charged, not even feeling the damage from his flamer.

"Feth! Maybe I should have taken that heavy flamer........." Moon muttered. He continued pouring liquid flame onto the creature, but it wasn't even slowing him down.

[KnightDisciple]

Cursing, Trooper Knight rolled out of the Warboss' way.
"Maybe we should have had anti-tank. Maybe's won't do us any good now. You go for his face, the rest of us, try for the joints!"
Knight continued to fire, managing to scorch the armor for a while, until a lucky burst of fire caught one of the joints in the claw arm, reducing its movement substantially.
"Just a little more..."

[Moonlitrebel]

Trooper Moon aimed the flamer right into the Warboss's face and fired. the Warboss let out a howl that could be heard across the field, and finally started stumbling back. Moon continued firing.

"Where are those damn 'Eldar'..."" he wondered aloud.

[KnightDisciple]

Trooper Knight radioed up to command, "Command! Where's our distraction! We're getting murdered down here!"

[Moonlitrebel]

Trooper Moon didnt let up on the flamer until finally the warboss fell down face first into the mud. But it was only a small victory. All around, the orks charged on, not even noticing the death. And in the distance he saw a trio of battlewagons headed this way, accompanied by ork trukks and even a looted Leman Russ, with its markings hastily painted over in red.

"Sacred feth, what had the 707th gotten themselves into!"

[Fay Graydon]

A huge shot flied over the heads of those fighting and smashed into the Ork battlewagon and exploded, causing the temprimental piece of junk to also explode in a huge ball of fire, debris and Ionized Plasma Particles.
The Blaineblade lugged its huge gun back round to bare and unleashed another shot, this time at the main expanse of Ork Boyz.
Ikaeru gave a whoop and glanced at his men who were almost aboard the transport.
'Come on' he thought to himself as he put shots through the heads of nearby Xenos, 'Fix this damn contraption so we can evacuate'

Higgs ran over, dodging Dakka as he went and occasionally fireing a shell or two from his shotgun into a Green skin.
"Looks like this bird needs help to fly again" he smiled.
"This is Engineer and apprentice Enginseer of the 707th, he'll have this thing off the ground in no time" said Ikaeru.
"Where do you want me?" asked Higgs

[chiasaur11]

"Allright. We got one the one currently working escape route lifting off in under a minute. Anyone who's out of ammo, seriously injured, or otherwise useless, get on the thing. Furthermore..."

Chiasaur paused as the hastily jammed in radar display lit up with a few rather large dots. If he guessed right, a very large "Eldar" assault force was coming. He almost pitied the Orks.

Almost.

[Raroy]

Raroy touched his hand to a check. He found his palm colored red. The amount of blood flowing did not seem like anything serious. A big and apparently important Ork had run by and ran through some men. Raroy could of sworn he was five feet away while he was shooting at it. He shot some Orks on his little mound with the plasma pistol and wished the battle would soon end.

[Moonlitrebel]

Moon let out a whoop as one of the three battlewagons exploded fantastically in the distance. the other vehicles suddenly stopped and milled around. Moon imagined they were trying to decide whether to go after the men and the transports, or to try to find whatever destroyed the battlewagon. Amid the mass of greenskins, Moon couldn't tell what had destroyed the wagon, but Moon sincerely hoped they went after it instead. He sprayed another jet of flame into the greenskins surrounding him. it seemed like they were thinning out now...

[chiasaur11]

Chiasaur paused the missile barrage against the Orks. They seemed to be focusing on the diversionary group, and, despite the fun of exploding a few dozen greenskin noggins, safe evac seemed more vital than fun at the moment. He turned to the troops.

"Well gents, it seems someone's attacking the Orks with a good deal more passion than us. I say we leave them to their work, fix the damaged evac craft, and get out of dodge. Any objections?"

[KnightDisciple]

"Not at all, sir! Gives us a breather and all!"

[Fay Graydon]

-moved to make more sense-

[thorgrim29]

-Alright, 29th, we go in last. Fighting retreat to the evac ships.

By now, the sargent's hellgun was depleted, and he was shooting orks with the two bolt pistols he kept as sidearms. Both went "clik" as the magazines were depleted. He reloaded the left one as he revved his chainsword up in the right. Just then, 3 orcs evaded Moon's fire and charged at them. Two bolts later, one was down. The other two were in hand to hand combat with the 29th. They lasted all of five seconds.

[Moonlitrebel]

Moon continued to fire his flamer at the hoarde of greenskins. it looked like the 'Eldar' had finally arrived, so it was time for them to leave. But first, He had to make sure everyone else made it into the transport first. he took out a couple of frag grenades and tossed them into the mob, grinning as the explosions ripped them apart.

"Everyone in?" he hollered.

[Verruckt]

Verrukt and the Tau pilot had made their way onto the top of the downed manta and had been fending off a steady trickle of greenskins. Verrukt was a tanker, and damned proud of it, so his melee skills were somewhat lacking. Nevertheless he practiced his chainsword drills with the diligence of any storm trooper or commissar and managed to hold his own in single combat against the first 4 orks to make it onto the hull. A pair of the giants were bounding up the back of the massive transport, have climbed up the nose. Verrukt reflected morbidly that they'd probably used the navy boy's dangling arms as handholds. His borrowed pulse rifle brought the first down hard and the second was relieved of both of his arms after a clumsy sidestep and vertical chop.

It was the third that he hadn't seen that cost Verrukt his left eye.

He heard the grunt of exertion and leapt back. The choppa that would have decapitated him split his face from cheekbone to the bridge of his nose, taking his eye with it. He was on his back, howling in pain. Bleary eyed he could just make out the bellowing ork, raising its choppa to rend him apart, when the ork's head was evaporated by a pair of shotgun slugs.

"Looks like this bird needs help to fly again" he smiled.
"This is Engineer and apprentice Enginseer of the 707th, he'll have this thing off the ground in no time" said Ikaeru.
"Where do you want me?" asked Higgs
“There, on the engines.” Verrukt replied, still clutching his face. “I’m going to head below decks and settle into a nice bout of unconsciousness if you don’t need me up here. Call up Krrth and the cogboys, I’ll be needing some augmetic work I’m sure.

[Fay Graydon]

Higgs clambered onto the engine and started his magic.
It took him less then 5 mins before the engine was back on and he was putting the final bits back into place.
Higgs was frantically working on the downed Manta as Ikaeru put more shots into the heads of the Xenos scum.
"almost got it..." Higgs said.
"Comon Higgs!" Ikaeru almost cried as he slipped new power cells into his Laspistols "Im running low on power"
The Major shoved the gun into an Ork's mouth who had managed to clamber up to him and pulled the trigger.
"Got It!" Higgs said. "This bird can now fly! everyone get in!"
Ikaeru clambered in after the others and nodded at the Tau Pilot... he knew there was a decent reason for this and decided to follow up after the battle.
Ikaeru ran over to a vox and spoke into it.
"Any 707th or Misfits not in a transport get in one now! we have managed to get the Manta online, get to it if you can!"
He turned to the Tau Pilot "after any men are aboard don't forget to pick up my tank!"

[Kane]

"Steady, Steady!" Gunner Kane shouted, slewing the turret to accommodate the driver's steering.

"There's a horde of orks out there, and the airlift is going to take off without us if we don't get in in! How steady do you want me to be?" the driver yelled frantically.

"Look, just stop for thirty second!" Kane responded, grunting in approval as the tank suddenly stopped. At almost the same moment, an explosion resounded through the tank, a rokkit hitting and glancing off the front armor. Even through the thick layers of adamantite, the gun crew could hear the Orks rallying with their usual 'WAAAAAAUGH!'.

"They think they got us. Good timing driver." Kane responded. "Now, if our sponsons will cover us, I'm going for a record in gunning. Three battlewagons in forty five seconds." the tank rocked slightly as Kane fired, straight into a battle wagon five hundred meters distant.

"Two." he said, firing again as soon as the loader had finished. A second, much closer wagon blew like a giant bomb, shards and pieces of the hodge-podge ork 'handywork' scything through the mobs of boyz around it.

"And now for the bosswagon... Thr- GODEMPORER DAMMIT!" Kane yelled, as the driver, either running out of nerve or deciding Kane was running out of time, began rolling backwards up the Manta's loading ramp. The shot that might otherwise have been on target instead blasted apart a group of nobz that had exited the wagon just prior to the shot. The wagon itself was knocked over by the blast wave, crushing even more orks. The tide that had almost advanced to the front of the Manta's deployment ramp fell back, cowed for the moment. An Orkish cry of vague distress or surprise arose as some of the brighter ones began point up, at what they were now realizing to be engines, as opposed to guns.

"Over the top, and in the bay." the driver reported, "tell the pilots to get us the warp away. Please."

[Moonlitrebel]

Moon hopped into the nearest transport, still firing his flamer out into the crowd of greenskins below. Now they just needed to wait for the 29th to get in, and pick up the Baneblade, and they would be good to go.

[KnightDisciple]

Trooper Knight stepped back onto the ramp of the transport, side by side with Moon. Between the flamer and hellgun, no orcs seemed to ever get near them.
"Refreshing afternoon out, wouldn't you say?"

[Fay Graydon]

"Higgs! were good to go" shouted Ikaeru.
Higgs jumped onto the boarding ramp and fired a few more rounds when an attack Squig collided with him.
"HIIIGGGGGSSS!" screamed Ikaeru blasting the Squig from Higgs's neck... but too late, the Squid had ripped out his throat.
Higgs hadn't screamed because the Squig had also ripped out his vocal chords.
Ikaeru saw a huge Ork guffaw dumbly, the Squig had obviously been its.
Ikaeru lowered Higgs's eyes, Picked up his friends Shotgun and let a mighty scream of both sadness and hate issue from his lips.
He started to run to the ramp, ready to blow that cursed Xenos into a billion pieces.

[thorgrim29]

The 29th had been waiting for a last squad to get there, but all but one were killed in the desperate run to the transport. The terrified trooper dived into the manta and the xeno errrr imperial ship lifted off. Flames and lasfire rained from the hatch until it closed.

[Moonlitrebel]

"yesssir!" Moon chuckled. "A nice little stroll in the park!"

He sat down in a harness and buckled himself up, just in time as the Manta shuddered and took off.

[Raroy]

Raroy laid his head back against his harness, closed his eyes, and let out a breath of air. He just wanted to calm down, and rest himself. All of the plasma pistol ammo had been emptied which forced him to use his sniper with no scope and trip Orks to get to safety. He slowly crept his eyes open, noticing a large number of soldiers missing. Raroy's eyes just shut closed, they seemed to be stinging due to that slash from the war boss. He took his helmet off and fiddled with the broken side.

[chiasaur11]

"Well kiddies, that's pretty much how this goes. Anyone who has trouble with this kind of operation, you'll find applications for dismissal just outside the airlock. For those who prefer probable to certain death, we have signups in the rec room for raids on Necron tomb worlds. Any questions?"

Chiasaur surveyed the exhausted remainders of the two units. Seemed like most of his unit had made it out alive... including the Xenos. Well, you can't have everything. At least this time the plan was more or less pulled off, and the net total troop change was a positive. He was looking forward to the vacation.

[Fay Graydon]

Ikaeru had sunk to his knees.
The door had shut just as he reached it.
He stood up and buckled himself into a harness next to a long range communication Vox.
"This is Major Blaine of the 707th... all units are in Evac craft... requesting orbital bombardment on the planet..."
Then he sat in silence and said a little prayer for all those that had fallen against the Orks, both from his unit and the Misfits.
After that he began to compile a report on a Dataslate.

[Foeofthelance]

Foe heard the call for evac go up on the vox network and signalled to the other pilots.

"The boots are clear boys, so its time for us to go home. I've got it on good authority that we don't want to be hanging around too long."

"Roger that, 2 copies."
"Roger, 3 copies."
"Roger that, 4 copies."

There was a moment of silence and Foe found himself getting annoyed. Now that the transports were lifting out of range the orks were beginning to focus on his little troop, which was not a good thing. "Report 5. Rutherford, where are you?"

"Coming sah, 5 copies," came the reply. Foe pulled up for a little more altitude, the other three Those Things already burning through the atmosphere above him. After getting a little higher he could see the fourth modified craft come racing up from just over the roof of the jungle canopy.

"Damnit 5, we said no souveneirs!" Foe barked.

"Sorry, sah, the Terrus boys insisted on making a little detour. Didn't see the hahm in it, there didn't seem to be any orks about. We only put it down for a moment."

"Sergeant, consider yourself on report! Now get your arses skyward, they're beginning the bombardment!" About a half a mile distance the clouds parted as a massive lance of energy, nearly ten meters across, stabbed down to scourge the land. The orks caught in its path didn't so much die as cease to exist, as well as anything else caught by the beam. A second and third joined it, the beams running a tight pattern as they swept up behind the retreating Misfits.

[chiasaur11]

Chiasaur watched as the pilot carefully landed the transport back on the Imperial Navy ship the Regiment had been using lately and walked briskly out.

Primoris absentis , primoris domus, as usual. If, Emperor forbid, Cabal died, he was definitely getting that put on the unit's letterhead somewhere.

Well, time to report to the man who was still his direct superior. And if navy brass was talking to him...

Well, they could just enjoy a report of a successful mission. No real harm in them knowing there was something the unit did well besides loot corpses and run before the =][= came.

They could run from Orks nearly as well.

[Moonlitrebel]

Now, safe back on board the ship, Trooper moon lit up a lho stick and started to clean his flamer. They were just waiting for the troops who provided the distraction to return. he got his flamer sufficiently shiny, and he adjusted his Beret. Then he wandered off to the mess hall.

[Verruckt]

Verrukt stumbled out of the docking tube into the starbase. He'd waved off the ministrations of the New Recruits and had instead wrapped a simple piece of cloth around his head. It was slowly but surely turning red. He wobbled over to a voxcom and hollered down the pipe "Wych, Cogboy! Where are you?"

[Lord Mancow]

Just prior to the rescue mission

Mancow had been sleeping in his chamber, awaiting the time to rescue the 707th when his door had slid open and his four elite navy guards dropped dead. Before Mancow even had a chance to raise from his bed a squad of Navy stormtroopers marched in and gagged him. They then led him away and pulled away from the starbase in a shuttle with which they had sneaked into the starbase. Aboard the shuttle he was taken to a locked room with a mirror in it.

Mancow had no idea as to how long he had been in the room except that they had brought him six meals when a man he recognized as a high-ranking naval officer (the big hat was a giveaway) who specialized in rectifying the habits of commanders who got to close to the action.

"Air Marshal," his tone worried Mancow,"It has come to my attention that recently you have been flying in massed combat sorties against Xeno scum, while I shall admit that these strikes have been effective I am here to tell you that you are risking demotion and even court marshal by this behavior. You are the commander," he stressed the word," of a Naval ground support force including fighters, bombers, Valkyries and starships which require your utmost attention in the middle of battle! That attention must be focused on the effectiveness of your force as a whole and not on you trying to shoot down Xeno scumbags!"

"And what if you are shot down? GodEmperor Dammit! It is rare to find a commander who has as much experience as you! Now we are going to return you to your command but you shall amend your ways Mancow or else next time we see each other it will be at your court marshal."

Mancow started to leave the room but just as he was closing the door his interrogator said, "And Air Marshal, I've seen the Xeno craft aboard that fleet and as long as they are used to smite the Emperor's foes and are blessed by tech priests you won't hear anything about them from naval command. And here, take this tome and read it, you and the Misfits might find it rather interesting."

When Mancow returned to the Starbase he checked his chronometer to see the time and realized that five days had passed since he had been abducted and he quickly informed his aide that he had returned and his aide then proceeded to tell him that he had been told to keep the disappearance quiet if he wanted to stay as a 100% flesh body.

[WychWeird]

The servitors murmured the Litany of Installation as the various weaponary was installed on the Baneblade chassis recovered from a previous Misfits mission.

"Wych, Cogboy! Where are you?"

WychWeird sighed as the call came over the vox. He walked over to the vox and keyed for transmission. "I'm assuming you're addressing me, Verrukt? How can I assist you?" His eyes wandered back to the vehicle that was taking shape from reclaimed parts, secure in the knowledge that this 'resurrection' would please the Machine God. As was the tradition of the Misfits, this vehicle lent itself to a name; a vehicle reborn which would include purging flames left only one choice. Phoenix.

[Verruckt]

"I'm in the market for some Augmetics, what can you do for me?"
Took him ruddy well long enough, Verrukt needed to change the dressings already.

[WychWeird]

WychWeird accessed his stores list.

"I have an optic which may be patched into the spirit of a machine providing enhanced targetting. This will improve your performance and impart some of the wisdom of the Machine God to you. I can be ready to neurograft in a short while, if you can get here. You may be able to test your systems out on Phoenix, providing my servitors continue to work at peak efficiency."

[Verruckt]

"Sounds wonderful, I'll be right on down."
within minute Verrukt found himself strapped to a medicae table with all manner very pointy looking devices perched like spider limbs over his head.

[Moonlitrebel]

Trooper Moon sat down at the mess hall, with yet another one of the Emperor's glorious ration packs in front of him.


"what I wouldn't give for a steak right now..." Moon muttered, and began to dig in. While doing so he took a look around. the mess hall was much quieter than he thought it would be.