Day 12

Curse this Emperor damned weather. Its raining for five days straight now. At least we’ve got a roof over our heads and some stoves for food and warmth. Half my platoon is packed round one of the five stoves while the rest guard the boarded up windows, checking to see if they are there. They know we’re here and they are going to kill us all if we don’t kill them first. Bah! Let them come. Who are they? They are the traitors, good citizens who’s faith has been taken away and replaced by hate for the Emperor himself! We call them shit stains, warpwhores and traitors, but they are officially known as cultists.

“Sir! I’ve got movement on the scanner! They’re close those fraggers.” Bronski called out. He’s a good lad. I ought to give him a field promotion to corporal soon. He’s guarding the door with a lasgun and scanner. He peered at the scanner a second more before looking up in shock. “Here they come!” Trooper Bronski cried out. A flurry of lasbolts and autogun rounds impact and ricochet on our position. “Up and ready! Give it everything you got!” I bellow at the men who scramble to a window or hole in the wall and readies their weapon. I stride to the doorway next to Bronski who hands me a spare shotgun. I can see movement in the rain now. “Fire at will!” From the windows and other fire points a steady stream of lasbolts is fired at the unseen enemy. A few meters to my right I can hear the platoon’s Autocannon cycle its first round into the chamber. Corporal Dankin, the gunner, depressed the trigger and made wide sweeping arcs with the barrel as he fired a steady rippling stream of high velocity death at the enemy. To my left the platoon’s heavy bolter coughed into life, firing heavy calibre mass reactive shells with the sound of small thunderclaps at the enemy. This should be enough to keep the enemy away. They’d be dead before our ammo runs out. They’d be…

A explosion from behind pulled me out of my victorious thoughts. As I turned to see what at first thought was a mortar impact was something far more worse. Tunnelers have breached us from below. “Frag!” I scream in panic as I raise the shotgun and blast the first purple robed cultist from his feet. “Evens keep up the suppressing fire, unevens suppress this shithole!” I rack the slide of the shotgun and blast another traitor. “Get a fragging grenade launcher up here right now! It want this hole sealed!” Besides me trooper Beck tries to bring his flamer to bear but gets a knife slammed in his throat. I slam the killer away and reach for my chainsword and in a wordless cry of hate start hacking at the enemy. Besides me troopers started stabbing and beating with their lasguns and short swords, they to shouted cries of hate, fear and anger as they butchered or were butchered. After two minutes of frantic and bloody close combat we managed to stem the tide. I limp over the hole and pull a frag grenade from my webbing. “Krak grenades at the double! Seal this hole now!” Besides me Bronski dropped an entire bag of krak grenades in the hole and backed away. “Right! Ease! Fire in the hole!” I pull the pin and drop the green grenade. Three seconds later the entire building rocks on its foundations as the frag grenade sets of the krak grenades. I gave a grim smile as Bronski stood next to me. “Sir?” I pointed to the sealed hole and the gore pattered ceiling and walls. “When we dropped the grenades there were still infiltrators in the tunnel. I could hear them cry out in terror and fear.” I turned and looked at the charnel house what was just before an Imperial position. The floor was slick with blood of the dead and wounded. Troopers were checking if the traitors were really dead with bayonets and pistols. Wounded were pulled out and treated first aid while the dying were given last rites.

Victory?

It was our victory, but paid in blood. I’ve lost twelve good men and another seven are out of action for a while. The next day we were ordered to fall back to the main compound. There we remained for several weeks until the new reinforcements came in the form of the Cadian 13^th and a full company of Imperial Fists. The bloody recapture has begun…