Tales of the Rymr 1st

[SvenIronhand]

I wrote these as accompaniment to my Imperial Guard thread, but I figured they'd go here, too.

Inspiring the Men

Lord Commissar Kragg stepped into the 1st’s dimly lit command post with his usual bodyguard of six Ironbreakers, three flanking him on either side. His steely gaze swept over the assembled officers, and his face did not move a single inch. He was well-practiced in the art of showing no emotion. Durgrim Fell-Handed was there, at the map table, as were Warlord Wootz and Brokr Braggsson. Their eyes were on him, expectant and breathless. In him, they sought surety.

 

“Gentlemen, I will not lie for a moment.” Kragg was an outsider. He had not been born on Rymr, like the rest of the Regiment. He had been taken from far-off Svartalheim, as a babe, to train in the Schola. But he, too, knew the bitter pain of exodusting far from home as well as any Squat of Rymr. “We have a hard fight on our hands, here on Tar-Namib.”

 

“That’s an understatement if I ever heard one.” Ivaldi Wootz was first to speak, out of the three of them. His tone was sharp, but he dared not raise his voice at the Lord Commissar. Anyone with half a brain knew what that would bring. “These green-clad traitors - they know no fear.”

 

“And neither should you, Warlord.” Kragg’s answer was quick in coming, snappy and sure. His sonorous tones reverberated through the tent. “You are not a mere feeble Man, no. You are a SQUAT! Forged and tempered by the Homeworlds, a son of the Strongholds! Faithful and strong!”

 

“Indeed, Warlord.” Durgrim rejoined. “The Ancestors look on. The Allfather looks on. They will not brook with dishonorable conduct here!” He implored him, leaning on his great Chainsword as he spoke. A grazing hit from a bolt shell had fouled his left leg, but the Priest still led the men into battle, all the same. The power of faith, Kragg noted. “What lies before you is a chance to avenge the sin of the Great Heresy War!”

 

“Honor.” Ivaldi muttered to himself with a lowered head, convincing himself of the rightness of his course. It was good to see, Kragg thought. “Honor and duty. Very well.” He raised his head, and looked Kragg in the eyes. “How’s morale?”

 

“Like I said, I will not lie. The situation is bleak.” Kragg responded to his question, downcast by their losses. “Between the scouring sandstorms and enemy action, our ranks have been reduced by - say - thirty percent, leaving us with about fifteen hundred Troopers.” He paused here. “But to our relief, the enemy has yet to summon Daemons. They seem reluctant to do so.”

 

Wootz groaned, scratching his bearded chin and turning his back to the Lord Commissar.

 

“Fifteen hundred Squats versus a full Company of Astartes. It is grim arithmetic, no matter how you slice it. But we have the benefit of being entrenched. They have not struck a decisive blow to our force. We can still fight back - and we must!”

 

“Your orders, Warlord?” Brokr asked eagerly. His eyes were alight.

 

“Have your Company’s Heavy Weapon Teams set up on the ridge nearby the camp. When the enemy comes - and he will - level your Heavy Bolters at them. They are Astartes, but they can still die. Kill as many as you can, then withdraw to the camp. We will make our stand here.”

 

“A fine plan,” Kragg noted. “Let us hope it survives first contact with the enemy.”

 

Manufactorum Raid

 

Manufactorum Whadi was an utter slaughterhouse, wet with offal and blood. Tevildo Torsson, Ironbreaker Prime, thought this as he led his five men through its labyrinthine halls. Each and every shadow could contain a dumal Astartes, so he kept his guard up. He didn’t want an ambush on their hands, not now. They had been tasked to take the Manufactorum, and that was what they were going to do.
 

Yet, in the faint red glow of their multi-spectral goggles and omniscopes, Torsson couldn’t help but feel uneasy. There were too many chokepoints, he thought. They had lost two Ironbreakers to enemy action already, boltgun fire cutting them down like chaff before a scythe. Of course, they had killed the Sons of Horus responsible, but the loss hurt. He was not a Scion or Space Marine, he had not had his feelings engineered out. The Kill House had merely made it so he could control and compose himself when needed.

 

They had come to a great rotunda, a klick or two in radius.  “Contact!” The cry went out from one of his point Squats. Torsson steeled himself and raised his Hot-shot Las-Pistol. “Two Astartes, two-fifty!” They lit up the rotunda with their Hellguns, criss-crossing their fire and tracking their targets. White flashes filled the room, causing their goggles to automatically dim, as they unleashed blue-hot plasma towards the foe.

 

The foe did not stay still in the face of all this. Running to cover, they leveled their boltguns at the Ironbreakers and replied in kind. Blood and guts splashed over the Ironbreakers as one of their number fell, and each felt rage in his heart at the loss. Roaring, Torsson leapt behind a steel barrel and aimed towards one of the Astartes’s heads.

 

He pulled the trigger and gritted his teeth. Tevildo let his hate for the foe guide his aim. A thrice-cursed heretic died, the beam punching through his ceramite helmet with ease. The traitor unceremoniously crumpled to the ground, dead. Enraged, the other oathbreaker rushed towards them, drawing a chainsword.

 

Tevildo shot forth in kind, his mighty Squat sinews propelling him forth. His body cried out, howled in agony with each step forth taken at this speed, but he ignored it. Pain was just weakness leaving the body, he reasoned. Drawing his combat knife, he collided with his foe head-on. They both tumbled to the side, wrestling with one another for dominance over the other. Torsson fought for his life against the Astartes.

 

It was hard to get a clear shot this close. He knew his only hope in a one-on-one fight with an Astartes was to fire the Hellpistol, but every time he thought he had one, it slipped from his grasp. So, with no other options, he kicked out. The sheer force of the blow sent the dumal stumbling back. He rose to his feet, and fired. Again and again, he fired, beyond what was within the usual allowance of shots per target.

 

Finally, when there was naught but a smoking husk, he ceased fire.

 

“Ok, boys!” His voice was clear, like a clarion. His words were concise, to the point. He pointed down the rotunda, and continued. “Let’s move on!” As he spoke, the other four leapt into action, moving like a well-oiled machine. As they filed onwards to the next objective, he joined them.

 

They fought in the shadows. They died in the shadows. For the Imperium. For the Homeworlds.

 

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

 

Orders change. Manufactorum Whadi had been deemed, in the face of the Regiment’s losses, a threat on their flanks. So as the Ironbreaker squad did their work in the very nave of the Manufactorum, placing melta charges and putting the remaining Servitors out of their misery, the factory died from the inside out. Torsson led them in this endeavor, feeding deliberately faulty data-inload psalms into the cogitators. The machine-spirits fouled, choking on scrap-code lies and falsehoods.

 

He chomped down on a lho-tube, and thought deeply, letting his fingers fly over the consoles on autopilot. An Adept of the Mechanicus would balk at what they were doing, but they were Squats. They had no place for such silly superstition when it came to technology. It did its job, until it didn’t. And when it had outlived its usefulness, it was destroyed, discarded. Simple as that. “How many dumal remain within?” He hurriedly asked his Tempestor adjudant, Alberich. The other Squat rubbed his chin, checking his monitron.

 

“Not enough to seriously challenge us, sir.” Alberich answered. “Should I send a patrol to confront them, sir?” His red beard flowed out of his open-faced helm, his piercing blue eyes covered by the red of his multi-spectral occulum.

 

“No.” Torsson held up his hand as he spoke, then lowered it back to the consoles. He continued questioning Alberich, throwing the proverbial spanner between the gears. “What of the plasma stack reactors? Did Squad Belegar make it to their objective?” The platoon had split up into its component squads, and they had not seen each other since.

 

“Yes, sir. Melta charges are placed, and you have the trigger.”

 

“Excellent.” Tevildo drew his 9-70 entrenching tool from his backpack, and embedded it in the pale-skinned servitor head in the center of the console. Sparks and blood flew into the air as the ghastly thing died. He spat narcotic-infused spittle into the air, in disgust. Out of the all things that came with being a servant of the Imperium, he hated Servitors the most.

Before Ashimar

Thane Razzak stepped down onto the launch deck of the Navy transport, grumbling and growling all the way. It was utterly alive with activity, everyone aboard rushing about and preparing for the combat drop onto Ashimar. Some of the Troopers were greener than others, new recruits picked up after the bloodbath of Tar-Namib. Valkyries hung overhead like great olive-green bats from launch gantries, waiting for their turn on the flight line. To his left, a squad of Ironbreakers sat on crates, making all the final checks of their equipment before their drop. On the other side, were his squad.

 

Roughly a third of them, Boki, Grundsson, and Drakka, were veterans of Tar-Namib. The rest were all green - and strange to look at, too. Two of them, Daugherty and Galbaraz, were clean-shaven, an oddity for Squats. How strange, Razzak thought, that a Squat would doff his beard. It was the pride of their people. He didn’t trust any Squat who would shave it, and wondered what would make them do such a thing. Perhaps, it was to blend in with the human population.

 

“You ready, Sarge? T minus ten ‘til we drop.” Grundsson asked in his gravelly voice. He was an Azril-Tromm, a grey-beard owed gnollengrom, respect and honor due to his age. “I’ve got my chutes stowed - “ By “chutes”, he meant a set of grav-chutes. The Rymr 1st were no Drop Regiment, but they had the equipment to pull off such a drop if needed. “And I’ve got this. “Requisitioned” from the armory.” He pumped a shotgun, ejecting a spent shell.

 

“Hell yeah, Grundsson. We are the ultimate badasses!” Daugherty whooped and hollered, brandishing his Lasgun. Razzak rolled his eyes at this bravado. It would fade soon enough, he thought to himself. Either Daugherty would buy the farm, or he would shut up. He wasn’t sure which he preferred.

 

“Listen up, Squad!” He spoke loud and authoritatively, as a Thane should. “We’ll be dropping by grav-chute into Artamos, and once on the ground, we’ll be establishing an airhead. The traitors are going to fight their hardest to keep us from hitting the ground, and to keep us from clearing the LZ! As for you newbies, remember your training - and you will come back alive!”

 

“Sir, yes, sir!” They cried out as one body.

 

“Alright, people. Valkyrie 887 is waiting for us! We’ll be going half the way in the fine comforts of the Valkyrie, and half the way by grav-chute. AA fire is light, but don’t think it isn’t there. Once we’re on the ground, I want you to fan out! No bunching up, you got that? I don’t want to have to put you in a coffin! That costs the Departmento aquilas!”

 

They laughed. Razzak stayed silent, an intense stare taking over his face as he thought. The enemy, the Grand Hellguard, were the former, fallen Ashimar 30th. Traitors, he thought disdainfully. But no beardlings, they. No, they were hardened veterans of many wars. Tar-Namib had seemed like the ultimate trial, but this had the potential to be worse.

Edited January 26, 2021 by SvenIronhand