[OW] Die Hards: Eleventh Hour

[Beren]

Without looking back, Stimms strides out of the building's front door and swivels his head, looking for Wide-eyes... and the Chimeras.

[Mazer Rackham]

Scarlet:

 

Halbast reaches for the Orkish gun, yanking hard at the bar affixing it to the pintle, doing his best to dismount it.  Vorgen scowls at him, then the ghost of a shrug haunts the Commissar's shoulders before he turns to you.

 

"How is the leg soldier?  Do you need to be carried?"

 

Stimms:

 

The Colonel is nowhere to be seen, but Wide-eyes is standing with some of the..."soldiers" indulging in passing a bottle around.  His face registers you and everyone turns to look as you emerge from the hovel.

 

"Have a good time?" one of them asks, as the motley crowd drifts towards a riot of fallen branches.  The number '42' burned onto his cheek with an electoo-laser twists in an unpleasant parody of a smile.

 

A burly member of the mob begins hauling the larger crops away, revealing a battered old vehicle scrubbed back in places to bare plasteel and adamantine.  Whoever it belonged to is long gone, the jungle erasing even the memory of the theft.

 

Wide-eyes looks like he will join them.  He is having difficulty standing, and his Mk-1 human eyeballs are not quite wide enough for sobriety.

[Steel Company]

"The only way a Scion is carried, is when we're dead, Sir." She says as she starts to look for something to be a makeshift crutch.

[Mazer Rackham]

Scarlet:

 

"Then I suggest you find a big stick, soldier."

 

You know you saw his lips move.  You know you did.  A tiny tug, just at the corners of his mouth.  A human gesture like a smile?  No, impossible, trick of the light.  He hands you a sturdy survival knife to whittle your walking aid, draws his Bolt Pistol and carefully watches the road.

[Steel Company]

"Thank you Sir, I'll find a good bit of rope to turn it into a spear too." She says offering a slight smirk to him in return.

[Beren]

Stimms grins back with an easy smile, shrugging as he does so.

 

"Aye, good enough."

 

Stepping forwards, he lightly lies a hand on Wide-eyes' shoulder, then subtely tightens it to a vice-like hold.

 

"What about you, having fun?"

[Mazer Rackham]

Stimms:

 

Wide-eyes gulps as his glazed eyes start to focus on you.  The pain from your grip exerts a telling force, and between that and your intense stare, you can tell both from experience and your medical training that he is enduring "a moment of clarity."  He drops the empty bottle of strong-smelling spirits to the ground, the sound lost in the snap and spit of flames and...whatever they're smothering.

 

"These boys ain't sho-so bad," he tries to straighten up.  He gives you a thumbs-up, bonhomie forced through the wince evoked by your grasp.

 

The Colonel, or Duke, lumbers into sight, mockingly warming his hands before chuckling and turning back for the hovel.  His broad shape disappears into the hut, and a pregnant silence descends.

 

The Chimera is being prepared for travel, as a few snap-cracks of lasrifle fire come from the other side of the hamlet.

 

A terrible scream erupts from the hovel, a man stuck like a grox, and the men nearest to you run for the hut, disappearing inside.

 

Just an FYI guys, I'm going to focus on Stimms a little here, then will do another full update with Scarlet at the LZ, (STeel, if you want to add any narrative of getting there, go for it) and move you both on from there.  We're in the final stretch now!

Edited November 21, 2021 by Mazer Rackham

[Beren]

Having kept his grip on Wide-eyes' shoulder, Stimms now shoves the driver towards the Chimera.

 

"God-Emperor above boy, why did you have to pick now to... Hurry up! I doubt the colonel takes to desertion any better than a Comissar!" 

[Mazer Rackham]

Stimms:

 

The crackle of las-rifles grows in intensity from the other end of the village, accompanied by the guttural shout you've encountered many times before.

 

"WAAAAGH!!!"

 

A tide of brutes crash out of the trees at the edge of the hamlet, shooting and chopping.  The Rebels are outnumbered and their discipline is slack, more suited to burning peasants alive in a Reclusiam of the Emperor than actually fighting.  Perhaps that is why the Colonel leads such a hopeless rag-tag bunch, stinking of liquor and crime.

 

A small shape worms clear of the trees, arm bloodied to the elbow.  The ragged girl looks around and bolts towards the riverbank.  Wide-eyes shakes himself free of your clutch and offers all his effort to get to the APC.  After a moment, the engine snorts into choking life, and the Rebels are caught - desperately wanting to flee, but knowing that to collapse so quickly is death.

 

"Get the tank over here!" Krauze yells, before his head is turned into a ruddy ruin by an Orkish axe.

 

The port-lasguns have been removed, no doubt to arm the Rebel troops, but the Chimera is still equipped with a multilaser.  It has seen better days, but it will have to do.

 

"Move!" Wide eyes bellows as he gives the APC a lot of right stick, sawing the treads, complete with their missing treads, around in an almost drunken swagger.

 

The rear ramp opens, and the arterial cabin light is exceptionally inviting, especially as the vehicle starts to clunk and clang - a sure sign the drive train is damaged, and being handled by a drunken driver.  A Stikkbomb announces that maybe vacating the area would be a good idea.

 

The following encounter will be Structured Time Light, (You go, I go).  The mob of Orks behind you is substantial, (+40 to Hit) and will soon cut through the rebels.  They will reach your position in 3 Rounds.  Holding them back with the Multi-laser is viable, albeit at a Difficult (-10) to BS due to worn condition.  However, due to this the weapon is dangerously unstable, and with each successful hit inflicts +1D5 damage to Magnitude.

 

Wide-eyes must pass a Difficult (-10) Drive Roll each Round.  He simply has to pass each one.  If he fails by 4 or more DoF on any test, the Chimera's Machine Spirit gives up and you become a bunker.  You will roll for your Companion.

 

Alternatively, you can try to help Wide-Eyes get the vehicle moving.  You may use an Intelligence, Survival or even Medical Roll (with appropriate narrative) to give him a boost of a cumulative +10% per 2 DoS.

 

Let me know if you need clarification or have questions.

 

You go first!

[Beren]

Stimms sprints into the compart, a stream of profanities leaping from his mouth.

 

"Of course the bloody fungi had to turn up now!"

 

He makes for the multilaser cupola, pauses, and ducks into the driver's cabin to check on Wideyes.

 

"You left the handbrake on! The water! Head for the water!"

 

 

Stimms roll to assisst.

Intelligence 40

d100 = 34

 

Wide-eyes roll to drive:

Ag 35(operate -surface trained) - 10 (difficulty) + ???(roll to assisst) = ???

d100: 25

 

Passes even without the assisst bonus, right on the border.

 

[Mazer Rackham]

Stimms:

 

A quick peek through one of the periscopes reveals the Orks breaking through the pathetic cordon of rebels with a cacophony of bellowing and roaring fit to raise all hell.  The sound batters against the hull of the APC, almost as though a meaty, balled green fist was breaking its knuckles on the inches of armour plate separating you from the fungal-men.

 

"Raaargggh!"

 

The Chimera lurches, staggers, but it begins to shift into gear as the Orks advance, the odd Slugga round careening from the hull with a sharp squeal.

 

Orks:
Half Actions: Attack Rebels
Half Move: Towards Chimera.

Edited November 22, 2021 by Mazer Rackham

[Beren]

Stimms hears the sound of shrapnel bouncing off the hull, and starts to rummage through his med-kit and his own clothing, teeth gritted as he examines and discards several compaunds before settling on several he seems satisfied with. Well, not satisfied, but the Orks weren't particularly going to give a damn about whether or not a humie medic was 'satisfied'.

 

"Hold still a moment!"

 

Suddenly he jams one of the syringes into Wide-eye's neck, flinching back at the driver's involuntary reaction, before doing it again with another syringe. 

 

"Look, this'll give you one hell of a hangover, but you need the bloody edge right now!"

 

 

Stimms roll to assist.

Medical 80 (Int 40 + Medic Kit(20) + Experienced Medicae(20))

d100 = 36    (4 DoS)

+20 

 

Wide-eyes roll to drive:

Ag 35(operate -surface trained) - 10 (difficulty) + 20(roll to assist) = 45

d100: 56

d100: 62

 

Fail

 

[Mazer Rackham]

Stimms:

 

WIde-eyes' head lolls back, a dumb smile on his face as the stimulants and alcohol together batter his senses and will into submission.  He fumbles and flops at the controls, which really need a firm, stable hand, and the CHimera belches out a gout of thick black smoke that fills the interior cabin, and vents outside to join whatever soot it has expunged from the battered old exhausts.  A quick peek through prism-glass to see outside proves two things: the first is, you are pointed at the river and are a few feet closer to it.  The second is, that the Orks are charging and throwing Stikkbombz.

 

"Blarrghh-ha-ha! Crack dat shell and peel out da meat, boyz!"

 

Orks:

Half Action: Charge

Half action: Throw Stikkbomb at Chimera.

(D100)

3 Hits, Damage 3 Structure points: 15 remain.

 

The hull is not in peak condition, but it's stubborn.  Even so, as scabs of rust begin to spall over you in metal confetti, it is obvious the old girl can't take much more.

[Beren]

Stimms swears loudly.

 

"Throne damn it! Just keep moving!"

 

With that he scrambles into the turret.

 

"Throne damn it, I'm a medic, not a gunner Wideyes!"

 

 

Stimms:

Target 56 (BS26 + 40 (Horde Magnitude) - 10 (weapon condition))

Roll: 7 (4 DoS)

 

Wideyes:

Target- 25 (Ag35 - 10 (Difficulty))

d100: 98

d100: 99

 

...

 

[Mazer Rackham]

Moon of Horon - Terullian Sub, Dalthus Sector c.920.M41

Grid Ref: 2120-0749-5.9MN (E-LZ Kilo).

 

Secondary Tracking:

Grid Ref: 0010-1956-0.9MN (3.01Km from Firebase Sawtooth).

 

Time Until Naval Bombardment: 00:47:39

 

T

he ragged trio of Scarlett, Halbast and Vorgen sit in a close-cropped glade awaiting the arrival of Mattock 3.  Although feeling very much alone, you are not.  The fighting in the distance has crept closer, and it can only mean the Orks are attacking across all fronts, en-masse.  The air is different from before, the stench of Greenskin is thick on the air, polluting it with bestial ozone and the perfume of alien thrill.  Against this is the hushed press of a charged pause, a critical point approaching for both sides, where brute strength may win the day.

 

The Orks must know what is coming.  It is foolish to think they do not, else why do they rush headlong at the Imperial line?  Perhaps it is just the fight that consumes them and not an underlying sense of self-preservation.  That would be too human, and they are not.

 

The wind picks up, and as the vivid green canopy wefts and wafts, you can see three scattered patrols of Orks.  Nine of the brutes in total, in pockets of three.  They move steadily, even competently.  They have not detected you, as evidenced by their lack of howling cries, or the cursed rattle of their boxy slugga pistols.  And almost right on cue, right at the edge of your hearing comes the turbine-howl of engines.

 

Valkyrie engines.

 

Halbast cradles the Orkish gun, and looks at Scarlet and Vorgen, who draws his weapon, and menaces the approaching foe with a jaw as blunt and fixed as the soot-blacked barrel of his bolt pistol.

 

Several kilometres away, different engines fill the senses of Medic turned Murderer and his companion, the Hopped-up Drunkard.  The contradictions in the men's current circumstances to their condition is ignored as they suffer the very human desire to live.  The Chimera, battered and clanking is more akin to something built by the creatures who now molest it in hand-to-hand.  In furious desperation, Stimms takes to the turret, and handling the weapon roughly, saws it around.

 

The barrel breaks in the urgent discharge, a foot of focusing laser and crystal matrix snapping free with a squeal to set teeth on edge.  As it pivots and grinds into position, the multi-laser erupts in a strange, non-Mechanicus approved torrent, a wide blitz of super-heated photon energy.  It strikes the beasts besetting the APC with all the graceless spill of a flamethrower, shredding and melting Orkoid flesh and bone in an annihilating tempest of power.

 

Hard crimson light flashes into the hamlet, as though an emergency klaxon lamp was tumbling around on an axle, carving up the earth and adding to the wretched, stomach-churning stink of burned human flesh with cooked xenos meat.  Of the mob who attacked, but a third remain, who are now too close to the hull for the multilaser to catch them, and have been saved only by luck, rather than Stimm's lack of gunnery skill.

 

Their burly muscles tilt and rock the chassis, even as the engine still labours, Wide-eyes struggling to clatter forward before the enemy closes the circle around the tank. The sense of pitching over is not imagined.  Laspistols clatter from a stowage bin behind the drivers' seat.

 

Yet for each desperate predicament, one thing is universal.

 

Time is running out.

Edited November 26, 2021 by Mazer Rackham

[Beren]

"Too close! They're too fething close!"

 

Stimms swings the turret back around so he can see forwards, yelling at Wideyes as he does so.

 

"There's a rut right there fool! Swerve left, left! Now straight on!"

 

 

Stimms Roll

Int 40

d100: 95

 

Wideeyes Roll: 

Target- 25 (Ag35 - 10 (Difficulty))

d100: 87

d100: 39

 

[Steel Company]

Getting low and starting to move towards the pick up point Scarlett motions for the other two to follow as she whispers, "We're almost out of this."

[Mazer Rackham]

Stimms:

 

Perhaps it is more the machine spirit that hears you and steers Wide-eyes addled sense, but the rust-bucket keeping the green mushroom-men from tearing you into pieces suddenly lurches, the right track shuddering as it grips the edge of the rut you discerned, and kicks mud over the Orks, blinding them and forcing them back.  There is the sound of meat tearing and bone cracking.  As a surgeon, it is unmistakeable, and the painful bellowing of a beast with it's hand caught in the gears of an auto-combine is drowned out by the throaty challenge the chimera engine roars back.

 

The formation of rivets and armour plates barges onward, grinding the greenskins into diced meat as it barrels into the riverbank with a thunderous crunch, breaking through saplings and fertile soil in a great spume of sodden earth as the APC bucks upwards.  Then the sensation of falling in your stomach as the tin can pitches forward into nothing, toppling down until the hard thump below your boots as the hull meets water in a flat, metallic slap.

 

The chimera bobs, and though there is a tiny dribble from some of the old bonding studs holding the thing together, she's buoyant, and you're alone.

 

Scarlett:

 

The Orks look skyward as they too pick up the skirl of jet turbines.  One of them, a much bulkier thug than it's fellows gestures, and with horror, you see that one of the Kommandos is carrying a Rokkit Pro-pelled Stikkbomb Launcha!  The Orks spread out, giving the Boomer-Ork some room as it hurriedly jams an exceptionally bulbous-headed, long-shafted Rokkit into the maw of the haphazard device.  A crude sight juts from the weapon, and amidst the crazed gubbins a light begins to blink red as the Ork sweeps it across the canopy and over the LZ clearing.

 

Perhaps it is some kind of augur array, but an alien blasphemy would never vex the hallowed machine spirit of a bird like a Valkyrie.  Would it?

 

Your companions have not seen the weapon, instead following your advice, and slithering into position to cover the seemingly imminent extraction.

[Beren]

Stimms keeps his teeth gritted, a single hole from those Orkish guns.

 

He swings the turret back around again, shooting wildly at the riverbank.

[Mazer Rackham]

Stimms:

 

As the surviving Orks rush to the riverbank, gesturing and shooting wildly in equal measure, you can hear the keening slice of the alien bullets as they chop the tormented skin of your motorised boat, but their stupidity and caterwauling is drowned out as you heave the turret around.

 

You annihilate them.

 

With a fury akin to a Preachers' brimstone, the turret, with its contraption so unlike the slender lines of a good old-fashioned STC multi-laser, spews it's crazed energy blast in a coruscating torrent of crimson light, as bright and rich as the arterial blood that sluices from your targets as you turn them into runnels of molten flesh and cindered bone.  The sizzle and pop you cannot hear, but the gross result is evident through the target scope.  The heat vaporises any moisture in the soil, and it instantly flash-fries before erupting into a hungry fire.

 

Maybe this place will make a soldier of you yet?

 

The chimera begins to trundle, treading water, and Wide-eyes puts you on collision course with the rendezvous point.

 

Or he would do if you were sure he wasn't steering the wrong way.

[Beren]

Stimms blinks as he surveys the carnage.

 

"I think... I think... I rather like this thing. Wouldn't mind being able to keep it around..."

 

With that he collapses through the turret, and onto the cold floor of the Chimera's cargo compartment. He lies on his back, eyes closed, breathing in, breathing out. He takes a moment to rest.

 

Then, squinting, he opens one of his eyes. Then the other. Labouriously, he reaches one hand up to the top hatch. Then the other. Grimacing, pausing a moment to contemplate just lying down again, he heaves the hatch open and peers out across the river. He sighs.

 

"Wide Eyes you dolt! This is the wrong direction!"

[Steel Company]

With a quick motion with her hands Scarlett communicated through field cant about the threat to the Valkyrie and motion for the three of them to get as close as they can to take it out before the bird arrives.

[Mazer Rackham]

Stimms:

 

The trip upriver is steady and relatively quiet - despite the fighting going on, yet it is obvious from the intensity the battle has moved further on from your position, which means the Imperial lines are collapsing.  Whether according to plan or not is beyond you, but the primary muster point is within reach.  Wide-eyes, in a semblance of competence pulls the tank into the shallows near the foot of a road bridge crossing the narrows ahead.  A checkpoint was here once, but has been abandoned.  Sandbags lie scattered along with assorted equipment, but lasguns are absent.

 

Wide-eyes stops the tank, the old metal beast gently rumbling after her swim.

 

Scarlett:

 

The situation could be worse.  But not by much.  Thankfully, the attention of the Orks is focused on the skies, a strange gleeful anticipation pervading the strictly quiet Kommandoes.  Vorgen nods and passes across a holdout piece to you.  On examination, it appears to be a miniature Triplex pattern Laspistol, the mass reduced as befits a holdout gun.  The barrel has been altered quite handsomely to leave a stub muzzle.

 

You will have to be close.

 

Halbast signals he will cover you with the Big Shoota, but it is clear they are deferring to you.

 

The weapon counts as a variable setting (M36?) Laspistol with the following modifications:

Range 10m

Clip: 12

Damage +2 at Half-range.

Handy: This weapon is light easy to use, but carries more recoil.  It gives +10 to hit, but any benefits (aiming, anything) is lost on the second shot of Semi-Auto burst.

 

The Boomer-Ork is 24m away if you want to circle around and ambush him, thus gaining Surprise.  You require an Opposed Stealth test every time you move.  Thanks to cover, you may make full moves, but run or charge actions will reveal your position.

 

Let me know if you need any further info.

[Beren]

Simms really doesn't want to abandon the Chimera, but on the the other hand, a couple of civilians in a military vehicle such as this may well raise eyebrows, especially given it's origins. Still...

 

"Hold on a moment wide-eyes." 

 

Stimms clamber sout of the vehicle and begins scouring it for any iconography that might identify it as being rebel.

[Mazer Rackham]

Stimms:

 

The "graffiti", by Imperial standards anyway, is poorly done.  The paint and marker stencils haven't been varnished or applied with any effort, or the proper materials and so it flakes off or peeles under your fingers and the rub of your cuff.  It only takes a few minutes to get rid of "The Iron Duke's Fist" or "Imperials Out!" and the Chimera could be any one of a dozen loaned to the PDF, Imperial-Aligned militias or even a private purchase vehicle by mercenaries.

 

It would just take the right paperwork to sort that out.  The Imperium loves paperwork, after all.

 

Maybe there is some along with your papers?

 

As you peer around the post, there are a few sets of scattered webgear lying around, plus some damaged helmets.

 

Standing there considering your options, you hear the scream of valkytrie engines, as another flight of evacuees jet skyward, protected by Thunderbolts this time, not Vendettas.  It's a sign the Imperials are wrapping up.