Chapter 5 Part 5

Chapter 5: The Battle of Victory Bay

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Part 5

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Victory Bay

Kronus

"For the Emperor! At them, no mercy!" A vox-enhanced voice thundered above the battlefield and thousands, tens of thousands took up the war-cry, their fury shaking the very foundation of the building Gabriel fought from.

"For the Emperor!" A deep, resonating bass came from below, proving that the shaking came from someone fighting on the lower floors. The floor danced below Forkas' feet, making him stumble. A deafening crash and cracking energy could be heard from below, then another one and a huge red figure exploded on the avenue, waving around a thunder-hammer.

Gabriel shook himself up and continued to fight. Finally he could see and sense it, the tide was turning! The Guardsmen below were swarming forwards racing on the heels of Sentinels and Chimeras that came down from the far end of the avenue, with a trio of Leman Russ tanks and their infantry support slowly moving to joint them. The Sergeant spared a few precious moments to take in the sight, especially when he saw a familiar figure among those leading the charge. There, flanked by a command squad and the distinctive shape of a Commissar, was the Inquisitor who became famous by first reigning in the Blood Ravens and then going after the Ork Warboss himself, charging that ugly abomination like a hero from legend! He even got away with it, and here he was, leading another charge to break the enemies of humanity!

"The Emperor Protects!" Gabriel screamed at the top of his lungs, suddenly feeling ashamed that he had been skulking around taking potshots instead of being even more active in the fighting. He wasn't proud at all of the thoughts he had while following that Space Marine and using that hero as a distraction so the enemy wouldn't come after him first.

"For the Emperor!" "No mercy!" "Kill the Xeno!" More and more war-cries echoed through the battlefield.

The Imperial war-machine chugged along nicely, and now that it was up to speed, there was no stopping it. Eldar tried their favourite hit and run tactics, however there wasn't much space to run into that wasn't already crawling with squads of Guardsmen with blood in their eyes!

A Xeno craft came screeching from above the ruins of the command center and began strafing the avenue heedless that some of its own people were fighting and dying down there. Imperial fighters were hot on its heels, however even to Forkas' untrained eye in things aeronautic, they were losing ground. Lasfire rose to meet the coming death-bringer for all the good it did. Gabriel aided his own meager firepower at the onslaught, however the Eldar fighter continued unabated and it appeared it was aiming straight at the Inquisitor, the never sufficiently damned bastard!

Green lighting cracked at two locations below and a lone figure appeared between the approaching death from above and the advancing Imperial forces. It was a large Xeno, one of the Necron "allies", who had to be some kind of leader – its whole body and regalia was more ornamental compared to the a few other of its kind Gabriel had the misfortune of seeing so far. It rose its staff at the fighter and unleashed a single beam of green light and shook it left and right, following the Eldar craft. The fighter released a spread of missiles before promptly blowing up, and with a bit of luck, it would take out the other Xeno for good measure…

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The Necron Lord grew more and more frustrated with every passing second. The elusive Farseer continued to evade his strikes, the Aeldari managed to bring some reinforcements as well, which was a mixed blessing. While that meant crushing them in this location and eliminating their leader became much harder, those troops weren't somewhere else wreaking havoc against the Imperial mobile assets, which would be vital in winning the larger battle, not just the ongoing skirmish in the middle of the city. Nevertheless, it was immensely frustrating, especially once he lost the support of his first Immortal squad to awake and enter the fray. While he couldn't get a solid hit upon the Farseer, she did manage to strike his metal hide a few time, leaving slowly healing scars behind. At least the damage he had suffered so far hadn't impaired his combat capabilities.

The same couldn't be said for too many of his available units. While they did their job, too many troopers, warriors and even Destroyers were damaged if not outright destroyed while clashing with Eldar raiding parties. That was less than ideal considering that the primary clash was yet to occur with the Tau just piercing the Imperial outer defenses. It didn't help that the Necron Lord found himself drawing reinforcements from the force he had been carefully gathering in order to strike the Tau from behind once they committed themselves so they could be broken in the field for good.

It wasn't all bad. While the humans proved inferior individually to the Aeldari as expected, there were a lot of them and they didn't flinch from throwing themselves at the enemy and paid the price for victory. They were already rallying in large numbers and soon they would have the critical mass to ensure this skirmish would be brought to a decisive end. That much was clear to the Necron Lord and he wondered if the Farseer could foresee how doomed her efforts were.

Well, apparently she did and in response, she called air support. While the human aircraft were decently armoured, given their apparent technological level anyway, well armed as well, they were damn slow and ponderous, something that the Aeldari exploited ruthlessly. If it wasn't for a couple of squadrons of Doom Scythes he was able to get operational just in case, the Tau and Eldar would have had uncontested control of the air, with predicable disastrous consequences.

Not a single one of them was in a position to intercept the incoming enemy air support… and the Eldar fighter wasn't aiming at the Necron Lord, which gave him a tiny pause once he figured that out. It was coming at the wrong angle and he was already engaged with the Farseer in close combat, he would be able to better weather any heavy weapons strikes than the witch. Using the sensors of cloaked scarabs and his active units in the area, it immediately became clear what the target was – the humans had just rallied and advanced rapidly this way. One of their leaders, the Inquisitor, led them and his death at the hands of aliens might be perilous for the alliance. From what little the Lord could gather, said human was uncommonly reasonable for someone of his station, which thinking about it, was another reason for the Farseer to want him dead on general principle.

It took him a split second to weight the probabilities and decision made, the Necron Lord disengaged, using a power surge to overload his phasing systems and teleport in a better position to intercept the incoming craft. He channeled the excess energy into a makeshift defensive screen even as he fed as much power as he could through his staff and released it as a beam at the coming fighter. His aim was true and the offensive machine blew up in an impressive display of pyrotechnics, but not before it launched a spread of missiles at the Necron. He braced himself and pumped all available energy in protecting himself before plasma warheads turned the immediate area into slice of hell.

Even as his systems struggled to compensate for the immense heat and he walked out of the inferno with the outer layer of his plating melting, the Necron Lord could see that the Aeldari gambit would be partially successful. The humans couldn't move fast and in force through the raging fire, only their sealed combat vehicles could brave the impacted area by moving through its outer edges. While that would doom any Eldar behind him, those on the other side of the fire would have a small window of opportunity to disengage, disperse and try and run for it.

That was unacceptable. The Necron Lord called more reinforcements to hunt down the old enemy, despite doing so meaning that neutralizing the Tau would be slower and bloodier for everyone involved. Allowing the too many Eldar to survive would mean that they would be available to cause havoc on the supply lines and other soft targets while the allies had their attention focused at greater threats.

Two surviving Immortal soldiers joined him, falling a step behind once the Necron Lord walked out of the inferno.

"What is your command?" The senior one, the equivalent of a human Sergeant, asked, both through the secure communication network and aloud, demonstrating that his voice-caster was very much all right.

"Hunt down the Eldar." He sent back.