Author Notes:
Honestly speaking, I hope this GSS chapter, and the ones to come, will be worth the wait.
As always, do enjoy, and please leave a like, comment, or review if you're able!
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Las bolts strike against the enchanted ceramite platings of the Rubrik Marine; other than creating showering sparks of red and blue, the Cadian Lasrifles do little meaningful damage.
"Fools!" Barks Sergeant Johnson to the Cadian Veterans still on ground level. "Aim for the Bolter! The Bolter! If you can't aim for shit, then kill the cultists!"
The disparaging remark garners no negative response from the pressured Cadians below, too busy withstanding the onslaught of the renewed heretic assault. With the Rubrik Marine acting as a bulwark, the traitors of man surge with reckless abandon, their battered ranged weapons spray everywhere, while those with crude scrap blades seek to hack apart any Cadian they come across. So overwhelming are the cultists' numbers that the Priest and the Cadian veterans can't even retreat inside the building without risking being shot at, or worse. Even the Priest, a devout preacher of bravery, is forced to take cover behind very thick and solid objects. There's a thin line between bravery and foolishness, and the Priest is experienced enough to identify which is which.
Nevertheless, Johnson's suggestion, crude as it was due to the pressing circumstance, was eventually heeded.
The few veterans who find the opportunity to utilize their trusted Lasrifles against the foes of the Imperium turn their attention against threats they can more easily dispatch. Their Kantrael rifles, properly equipped with the Twister Modules, easily tear through one human cultist after another, with Flak Vest or not. The veterans, some having dialed their Lasrifles to maximum output, find themselves racking up kills as easily as they breathe; one of their las shots may even score collaterals as the heretics rush heedless of the risk of bunching together.
Yet, before the veterans can do any meaningful damage, their positions are immediately beset by a ludicrous amount of las shots and stub rounds. Many of which go wide and do not even land anywhere near the Cadians' green helmets, but the onslaught does force them to lessen their return fire. This only allows the footsteps of their foes to get dangerously close to the Cadians' position. The only reason they have not yet been overrun is due to the two Heavy Stubbers in our possession: one wielded by Scorpin's Squad, another being carried around by a team of veteran guardsmen. That, and the Rubrik Marine is being very, very conservative with that Bolt Rifle of it.
At this point, I have effectively stopped being a sniper. After leaving behind an instruction for Weiss and Snippar, my temporary spotter, to be careful and pitch in whenever they can, I turn myself into a mobile turret. I move, or run, to a window or an opening in the wall, take aim at the sitting ducks outside, pull the trigger a few times to score either kills or mission kills, before repeating the entire process. Over and over again, in less than five minutes, I have run the gamut ten times, both vertically and horizontally, inside this hotspot of a building. Needless to say, my kill count stacks quite nicely, and my effectiveness is unquestionable when those I felled either wield high-explosive or heavy-suppressive weapons. Stuff that will most certainly cause our battered defense line to break at the keel in a matter of seconds.
Of course, it's not like I can skim off the enemy's rank and file without any danger to it. Not to be too much of a narcissist, but the sight of a cute girl like me running around through visible windows and holes in the wall, well, it attracts unwanted and hostile gazes. I am made a priority target when the cultists realize that, with each of my appearances, a few of them will most certainly experience what instant death is like.
Bullets and laser beams most certainly will befall any position from which I make myself visible. However, they will arrive much too late for I have made sure to keep myself swift and mobile, never occupying a spot for longer than a few seconds. In fact, more time is lost in transit than I would like. Had I not needed to worry about return fire, I would have planted myself in a good vantage point and let my Long-las rip apart everything I see.
Eventually, I find myself in an exposed, long corridor. The corridor is the last thing that stands between me and a stairwell that leads directly down to the ground level. Johnson's and Scorpin's units are garrisoned elsewhere on this floor, alongside a few veterans who have previously run inside after our defense line shrank. None of them dares to use the corridor for fear of being sighted and engaged with no hard cover between them and the enemy. The fear is especially more prevalent when that Rubrik Marine is approaching in spitballing distance with the Priest's group below.
For safety's reason, I can very well backtrack and use the inner corridors to navigate to the stairwell unseen... But where's the fun in that?
[Emperor of Man: And here we go~!]
Accompanied by a comment from the Emperor Herself, I step fully into the open corridor, my body facing away in a perpendicular manner to the approaching hostiles. Only my head and rifle are turned in the direction of my enemies. My feet carry me across the corridor at a pace that is faster than walking, but more relaxed than running. Thanks to all my physical conditioning, the Long-las in my hand remain perfectly stable. Each step I take is one precise las shot coming out of its barrel, meaning one less heretic to worry about.
The ease with which I reap their lives, so well in plain sight, is no different than a taunt of the century for the deranged cultists. A few of them rise to the insult and raise their weapons in my direction, something I immediately take note of. I lock in, and the world slows down in my perception. I see the stub rounds flying for me coming to a snail crawl of a pace, and the Lasrifles in the cultists' hands tracking my very form, moments away from unleashing beams of hot red light.
Huhm... So I need to tilt my head a bit backward. A sidestep here, followed by a brief stop... Then a step backward. Finally, I just need to resume my previous pace, albeit with a slight tilt forward in my posture. And subsequently...
All incoming projectiles and energy attacks miss me by small margins. Small, but significant nonetheless, as they can do jack if they can't hit me. Still moving forward, I aim through the Long-las's scope to see the dumbfounded expressions, hidden by the cultists' masks. Having seen them clearly, I waste no time pulling the trigger, sending them well on their journey to somewhere worse than Hell.
With me acting as a living decoy, the pressure on my Cadian compatriots is drastically reduced. This allows them all to more actively pitch in with varying degrees of firepower. Most notably, our Heavy Stubbers now fire more frequently and in long bursts. Scorpin and the others are also moments away from employing their Grenade Launchers when something happened.
The veteran Heavy Stubber team, tucking themselves low to the ground, has just finished firing a burst of .57 caliber rounds when a blazing fast bolt round scores a hit squarely on the main gunner. Because the gunner has been prone on a slight incline, the bolt round only destroys his head before embedding itself in the wall of the building behind him. The Rubrik Marine, having sensed the cultists falter, has intervened at last with deadly precision.
The assistant machine gunner, seeing the headless corpse of his friend, cries in anguish and rage. In a textbook manner, the assistant gunner performs the dead-gunner drill:
Still maintaining the prone position, the assistant gunner reaches one hand and leg over the dead gunner's body. Then, with a hand under the dead gunner, encircle the body and make a roll, tossing the body to the side. Finally, the assistant gunner replaces the dead gunner's position on the Heavy Stubber, followed by immediate target acquisition and reengagement.
It's not an elegant tactic, but what use is elegance when you have a dead pal and more lives on the line if you do not swiftly brace the danger zone and rain suppressive fire on the enemy? That is the grim essence of dead-gunner drill, and the assistant gunner down there has done just that, tossing the headless corpse of his dead friend to the wayside. As the Heavy Stubber barks its rage once more, this time striking heavily on the blue plating of the Rubrik Marine, I decide to intervene and spare us from losing one more veteran if I can help it.
When the Rubrik Marine aims at the Heavy Stubber team again, I take multiple shots on its Bolt Rifle. While the shots aren't enough to outright destroy or disable the enchanted weapon, they do knock away the weapon from its intended point of aim, causing the Rubrik Marine's bolt rounds to hit the dirt harmlessly near the Heavy Stubber team. This, obviously, attracts the dim-witted Rubrik Marine's attention. It raises its Bolt Rifle, intending to go for me next, but by then, we Cadians have already sent out a care package for it.
Scorpin's and Johnson's Squads have fired their Grenade Launchers in the time the Rubrik Marine spent trying to kill the Heavy Stubber team and me. A combination of 40 and 57 mm dual-purpose grenades then rained on the Rubrik Marine's position. A cacophony of explosions appears on the battlefield near our building, enveloping even the heretics near the Rubrik Marine in a shower of fragmentation and black smoke. A bit further from the point of impact, other cultists instinctively seek cover, giving the Priest's group the chance they need to pull back inside our building for a last stand.
"Inside! Quickly!"
"Set up a base of fire by the windows!"
I also take the opportunity to set up a new nest near the stairwell. Although visibility is impaired by the explosions, made worse when a second salvo comes down on the Rubrik Marine's last known position, my supernatural sense is telling me that thing is not yet down for the count. Behind that smoke curtain, the Rubrik Marine stands with multiple small cracks on its enchanted power armor. Cracks that are soon being repaired by colorful dust that belongs in the veins of Warp sorcery. However, much like my expectation, the Rubrik Marine has lost its Bolt Rifle, with it breaking down into pieces in the Chaos Marine's hand.
Without its ranged option, there's only one feasible means of attack the Rubrik Marine can do, and that is to rush in for melee assault, something normal Cadians are ill-equipped to handle. But that's only when we're put on a fair footing, and in case you forgot:
We have the high ground.
"John! Scorpin! Standby for Krak Grenades, out the ledges, straight down!" My voice cuts through the wartime noises and travels into the ears of my intended recipients easily.
"Got it!" Scorpin answers simply enough, whereas Johnson laughs. "Oh, I know where this is going!"
The Sergeant barely finishes his sentence when I shout.
"Now!"
Per my instruction, numerous pins are pulled out, and the same number of Krak Grenades are gently tossed out the windows and ledges, falling damn near the spots where the veteran Cadians and Priest used to be before their retreat further inside our building. Before the first Krak Grenades can even touch the ground, the Rubrik Marine has already broken into a sprint. With smoke curling against its enchanted form, the Rubrik Marine dashes the remaining distance to our garrison, crashing and flattening any cultist unlucky enough to stand between it and us. Yet, befitting its status as a golem-like servant, the Rubrik Marine doesn't register the deadly threat that multiple Krak Grenades will pose to its existence.
Foolishly, it charges into the superimposing blast radius. By then, the fuzes on the Krak Grenades have run out nearly at the same time.
KRA-BOOM
If the grenades from before were enough to temporarily stun the cultists, then so many Krak Grenades exploding near our building do more than just that. The front of the structure shakes and rumbles, with cracks running vertically through what's left of the reinforced walls. This time, the smoke cloud completely blots out anything to our front, with me being the only one who can reasonably ascertain the battlefield beyond the dusty veil. From my position, I can hear Weiss cussing about how a piece of debris, falling from the ceiling, nearly crushed her Vox-caster. While I may apologize to her later, it's imperative that I make my way downstairs right this instance.
That Rubrik Marine is still active despite taking enough ordinance that would otherwise knock out a tank.
In a blur, I rush down the steps, coming past the recovering group of Priest and veteran Guardsmen. With one hand, I pluck out a Frag Grenade on my vest, using my index finger to pull out its pin before tossing it straight out the doorway that is still covered in smoke. The resounding ding of metal upon metal wakes up the Priest and the surviving Cadians in his unit.
"Bastard is still alive!" One of the veterans catches on quickly, prompting the others to raise their weapons again.
However, swifter than they all, I detonate the Frag Grenade in advance with a shot from my Long-las, using the subsequent explosion to clear out the smoke and to stumble a heavily injured Rubrik Marine. It comes to a kneeling halt in the center of the lobby of this building. This close, we all can see how it has lost one of its arms, and there exist cracks large and small all over its form. Even its head sports a big gap where colorful dust is leaking out of it. However, to say that it's an easy kill will be an understatement of the century.
Before the other can react, I dash out of the fortified position, running to one corner of the room while firing my Long-las rapidly on the kneeling Rubrik Marine. I can hear someone shout warnings at me, but the others swiftly realized what I am doing and pitch in with their one Heavy Stubber and Lasrifles. With them stationary behind cover, and me running on one side of the room, we effectively create a crossfire that hits the Rubrik Marine where it hurts the most. I, especially, am constantly firing my Long-las in between the cracks of the Rubrik Marine's armor, causing its very existence to be destabilized from within.
Perhaps sensing the threat I pose, or it somehow remembers how much of a pain I have been to it, the Rubrik Marine takes the bait and rushes from its kneeling position to clumsily chase me. This means that the veterans won't be able to offer much help for fear of friendly fire, but the damage has already been done. With its sorcerous protection stripped by the Krak Grenades' detonation earlier, the Rubrik Marine is pretty much turned into a pincushion from all the conventional Imperial Guard firepower. The foul spell that powers its very existence struggles to give it one last huzzah, hoping to turn one last human into meat batter.
But were it so easy...
Ditching the now-empty Long-las, I pull out one of my sidearms and start rushing at the half-crippled Rubrik Marine, gun blazing. My Laspistol, while quite capable of dealing good damage to a heavily injured Rubrik now, is utilized instead in an interference manner. Mainly, I aim my shots to destabilize its precarious posture, hitting the joints between its remaining limbs. Eventually, an overcharged shot brings the Rubrik to its knees once more, with the shot disconnecting a foot from its leg. I approach the Rubrik Marine swiftly in its downed state.
Sensing mortal danger, the Rubrik Marine swipes its remaining hand horizontally faster than the human eye can see. Anyone else would have been turned into minced meat, but not me.
I come to a slide right beneath the swung arm. Quickly, I recover from my low posture behind the Rubrik Marine and, with a quick kick of my foot, jump atop the Rubrik Marine's power back. Before its hand can reach back to grab me, I duck and hop onto the ground with a roll, having successfully left behind a final parting gift, one that Rubrik Marine belatedly realizes.
I recover from my roll a short distance away from the Rubrik Marine, it is now using its remaining hand to rapidly knock against its torso in loud, resounding bangs, as if trying to get something out from its inside, but not knowing how to do it. Finally, it fixes me with a long look before the Frag Grenade I slipped inside it through a fist-sized hole in its armor detonates, sending all the parts that make it a Chaos Marine flying everywhere in the lobby. I have to raise a hand to shield against the shockwave. All the smaller fragments have seemingly been contained by the Rubrik Marine itself, with the larger pieces being the dismantled power armor, failing to hit any human in particular.
Ultimately, the Rubrik Marine's half-destroyed helmet lands, bounces on the ground a couple of times, before coming to a stop beneath my feet. Its torso, however, crashes near the Priest. Acting on the same mind, I pull out both of my Laspistols this time, with the Priest wielding his massive Eviscerator, and together, we exact judgment on the husk of the Rubrik Marine, seeking to eliminate its ability to revive, should a Sorcerer be nearby, once and for all. Seeing me literally melting the Rubrik Marine's helmet and the Priest hacking apart the torso, the other veterans seek out the other pieces and try to destroy them as well.
It takes a bit of an effort, but eventually, the helmet is nothing more than an unrecognizable mass of material. I then turn to see the Priest fix me with a gaze, his Eviscerator having just finished turning the torso into less than scraps as well. I can see the Priest's appreciation from that gaze, and the valiant preacher of a man soon gives me a nod of well-regards, one that I return.
The man very much deserves it after all the craps he led the veterans through.
Our attention is soon taken by yet another series of explosions in the far-off faux horizon, though. This is soon followed by the crackles of Vox connection being restored, and subsequently, the entire battlenet comes to life once more.
Lucifer Blacks, huh? Trust in them to deliver results if you don't have Astartes on the rollcall.