Chapter 6 Part 3

Chapter 6: Victory, you say?

=ATBS=

Part 3

=ATBS=​

in the vicinity of Victory Bay

Kronus

It felt great to face the Eldar in open battle, in a time and place where most of their advantages were neutralized. However, the means that allowed it, they simply grated over everything that made Captain Davian Thule who and what he was. To think that the Blood Ravens and the other Imperial forces on Kronus actually needed Xeno assistance…

Lasannons discharged their fury with blinding flashes, missiles rained upon the advancing enemy, while a thin yet unbroken wall of blessed steel moved to interpose itself between the Eldar and Victory Bay. For this engagement, the Force Commander had either already deployed or had in reserve the bulk of the Astarters heavy equipment he had available in system. Two Predator tank platoons led by a Land Raider formed an armoured fist he intended to pumpel the Eldar with, he had Terminator and Devastator squads ready to deep strike from orbit along with nearly a third of his available Dreadnoughts. All that was on top of full half of his company outfitted with heavy weapons and currently busy using explosives to dig in improvised fighting positions. If the circumstances were different, that would have been a waste of time. Usually the biggest issue with facing Eldar was to pin them down so you could bring the fight to them. However, this day it was different. The Eldar were the ones who had to attack in order to make an opening for their allies… and extract their infantry who walked straight into an ambush, the arrogant bastards.

The Eldar heavy units came as predicted, and thanks to Necron techno-sorcery, the Blood Ravens not only knew they were coming, they could observe the approach in real time and prepare accordingly.

It still grated, even if said intelligence was going to save a lot of his Brothers' lives upon this day.

The enemy came skimming over the low hills in the distance. A swarm of autonomous weapon platforms led the way screening a Viper reconnaissance unit. Behind them glided the bulk of the Eldar combat power on Kronus – three hover tank platoons led by Scorpions flanking an Emperor damned Cobra. The rest were merely Fire Prisms and Falcons, nothing to scoff at but still paling in comparison to the enemy super-heavy equivalents. If the Force Commander had to face them in open battle at a time and place of their choosing, well honestly Thule wasn't sure if he would have been able to win the day. Those relatively flimsy machines concentrated tremendous firepower, speed and protection in the form of the Eldar never sufficiently damned holo-fields, which usually allowed them to strike with impunity.

Well, this time the Blood Ravens could see through that shroud thanks to the Necrons and while the Xeno systems naturally weren't integrated with blessed human technology, the Astartes were more than good enough to compensate thanks to the visual feed provided by a small swarm of Scarabs.

"The enemy is in sight, Brothers! Fight for the Emperor! Lets smite the Eldar in his name on Terra!" Thule thundered as the Land Rider he rode went to a sudden halt and opened its ramps.

The Force Commander dashed out of the heavy vehicle barely slowed down by the heavy plasma cannon he brought out of the Reliquary for this battle and smiled grimly as the enemy entered into extreme range. Particle beams lanced towards the Blood Ravens from the swarm of weapon platforms and his Brothers responded with high-explosive death and lascannons. He didn't really bother to take proper aim and discharged his weapon. Even through his heavy armour, Thule could still feel the extreme heat the plasma cannon produced as a by-product of its operation. If there were unprotected people anywhere near him, they would have fried by the mere proximity. Wet grass ignited, the ground below the shot turned charred and cracked, and the enemy… The Eldar scouts managed to get away and avoid even a grazing hit. Yet, that wasn't good enough for the Xeno closest to where the plasma impacted the ground and unleashed its full fury, creating a deep glassed crater. A wave of blue super-heated gas and electromagnetic radiation pulsed outwards, igniting everything they touched. An Eldar Viper took the brunt of the explosion at its back and side, wraith-stone glowed white, electricity arced over the hover-vehicle and its pilot lost control, plowing into the ground. A moment later, a multi-laser secondary from the Land Raider shredded the light vehicle, claiming the first blood of the engagement.

The Eldar responded in kind. Particle beams and more esoteric energies lanced forward from their approaching tanks, which kept accelerating. Thule smiled at the sight. Just as predicted, the enemy didn't intent to fight him at all, merely slash through his blocking force, take the hits they couldn't avoid and proceed to wreak havoc in Victory Bay. The Eldar might have even pulled it out if they had scattered the moment they noticed his force. If they were from a different Craft World, that much would have been expected and a given, then again, Eldar from a different Craft World might have thought twice about attacking the Imperial forces when Chaos was active on Kronus…

"Crow Actual to all Strike Elements, you're clear to deploy, Option Marius Three." Thule called in his reinforcements.

They would drop behind his line in a pattern that would maximize the time they would have to shoot straight into the flanks of the approaching enemy… who would need to slow down soon, but until then… Thule shot at the line of approaching enemy tanks and jumped into a nearby trench, still smoking from the explosives used to dig it. Missiles screamed above, launched by the handful of Whirlwind vehicles he had available, only to be met with a painfully accurate return fire from the remaining weapon platform. That was all right, every platform shooting at the ordnance was one less shooting at his Brothers, which was important now that they were close enough to pose a threat. The ground shook when the Land Raider unleashed the full fury of its armament at the approaching Eldar and the enemy heavy units responded in kind. Blinding flashed and explosions erupted all over the battlefield, devastating lances of exotic energy slammed into the thick armour of the blessed machine, melting deep holes in it, which bled leaking glowing alloy. Whole Devastator squads opened fire with heavy bolters, missile launchers and portable lascannons, the Predators raced forward shooting all the way.

Two minutes, that was how long it took the Eldar to fly through the no mans-land between the two forces and simply force their way though the Blood Raven lines. Advanced anti-tank weapons cracked Predators, opening them with disturbing ease, Fire Prisms turned whole trenches into blazing infernos that would have killed everyone in the vicinity if they were mere Guardsmen, the Land Rider listed to one side, trying to keep its ruined right from being shot at, while spiting defiance with its remained weaponry.

The Eldar didn't emerge unscratched from their reckless charge. It might have even worked if the Blood Ravens couldn't properly see through their holo-fields, but that was not the case today. Their whole reconnaissance element perished before they could reach the trans-human lines, the Vipers simply lacking the armour to survive the kind of effective firepower the Blood Ravens could throw their way. Fire Prisms and Falcons fared better, their armour usually allowing them to survive multiple hits. However, every strike shattered painstakingly crafted wraith-bone and other, less exotic alloys, or even worse, slowed them down, so they could be more easily targeted and turned into burning wrecks. Even one of the Scorpions succumbed to a heavy strike by the Land Raider so it could be finished off by five Predators that ignored everything else in order to pump as much firepower into the crippled super-heavy tank as they could. Return fire blew up three of them, the Cobra sliced off the turret of the fourth, but not before the fifth one finally cracked through the Scorpion's armour and hit something important. The hind third of the Eldar vehicle went up in flame, the explosion tearing it in two with the forward third burying itself deep into the ground.

Then the Xeno were through, with Blood Ravens turning around to shoot them in the back, while the enemy vehicles slung their turrets around to return the favour. At that moment, the first deep striking units arrived, with Space Marines sprinting out of their pods and Dreadnoughts not even bothering to get out before opening fire with anti-vehicle weaponry. Seconds later, eight Terminators flashed into existence, each carrying heavy weaponry that wouldn't be portable even for regular Astartes and joined the fray as well.

At this point, the holo-fields proved their worth, saving multiple vehicles from outright destruction as they sped to safety. A wave of emerald fire washed over the ground behind the Blood Ravens and the Eldar drivers did their best to avoid the newest danger. A few of them even managed to do it, throwing their tanks right or left, however almost two thirds of the remaining enemy armour drove straight over the minefield that just phased in. Green lighting struck, either discharging its fury at the weaker lower armour of the hover-tanks or worse, overloading their anti-gravity drives and slamming them into the ground at full speed. As if that wasn't bad enough, the energy discharge scrambled the holo-fields, forcing them to restart. Either way, the result was the same – the Eldar vehicles suddenly became uniquely vulnerable and the Space Marines wasted no time shooting at the clearly visible targets.

"At them, Brothers! Don't let them get away!" Thule ordered.

He carefully lined up a shot at the back of the Cobra, which was still mostly intact. The super-heavy vehicle wavered, molten metal rained from its underside. It's turret slung, the Distort cannon lined up with the crippled Land Rider, and the Captain swore. They both shot at the same moment, an invisible pulse rippled through the air and hit the corner of the blessed Astartes machine. The armour simply imploded, providing no meaningful resistance, then the shot continued, spreading and tearing an even larger chunk of the crippled vehicle on its way out.

A burning ball of plasma hit the D-Cannon just bellow the barrel and the whole vehicle vanished in a wall of blue fire. A double heartbeat later, no less than fifteen lasers slashed through the burning haze. A flash potent enough to momentarily force the Captain's helmet optics to shut down came next and when he could see clearly again, there was a large crater where the Cobra used to be, complete with mauled chunks of alien metal raining all over the minefield.