CHAPTER 24.4

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Approx. 2000 words

All Rights Reserved

Copyright 2015   SJ

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Chaos on Terra Aurigae:

The Ogryns

 

written by  SJ

 

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    Once Lana and Jennifer had made their way back to the shuttle, Ramcke and Burns had already found Zane; all three were waiting inside the shuttle. When the hill had exploded underneath him, the Corporal had been sent flying though the air, landing heavily on some reasonably soft ground. However, he still had numerous injuries, a broken wrist and fractured forearm, a badly sprained knee, plus some cuts and bruises; Ramcke had already given him first aid. Lana chewed him out, telling him he’d have to stay inside the shuttle for the remainder of this mission. His Scout heavy bolter was nowhere to be found.
    After the remaining Terran forces had successfully made their retreat, Chaos forces mounted their armored vehicles and proceed on course toward Pech Garnell. With her shuttle fully stealthed, Lana watched them from the air.
    Even though she knew they were heading for the city, she wanted see if she could extrapolate EXACTLY where. She flew her shuttle until she was high above them, directly overhead; then she ran some software which correlated the directions in which each of the vehicles where moving related to each other, eventually giving her a more precise location, marking it on her map.
    She thought, asking herself: “Why was Chaos heading toward this exact location...a place inside the city?” Then she thought about Randal Thomas and S’hawna Morgan; when they had held her captive, they kept saying they were looking for a treasure that was supposed to be located somewhere in the city. She HAD to get there BEFORE Chaos--check it out. But, she had something else to do first.
    ******
    Lana’s shuttle was obviously much faster than the Chaos vehicles, all of which remained in battle formation, ready to deploy if the Terrans decided to stand and fight again. She made two trips to the country, dropping off her Scout bikes on the first trip so half of Ricardo’s Ogryns could fit inside the shuttle, cramped as they were...a chore made even more difficult because of the Ogryns’ natural claustrophobia. But, Ricardo turned out to be a good leader, inspiring his squad to overcome their fear.
    By the time she was done, her team was glad it was over. It wasn’t so much the cramped space inside the shuttle, but the flatulence of the nervous Ogryns. Needless to say, they were all happy to breathe fresh air again.

    ******
    She had parked her shuttle on an open, four-lane, street very close to the location she was looking for, where she now stood looking at fifteen Ogryns, each standing sloppily at attention, all dressed in their own battle gear of various kinds of thick, leather, tunics. However, only Ricardo had a ripper gun, a weapon designed for Ogryns, the only firearm they were capable of using.
    But Lana had no intention of getting the Ogryns into a firefight. Each of the Ogryns were armed with a weapon of their own making, basically a large, heavy, pole formed by the pouring of some kind of ultra-hard cement into a mold, letting it dry, then wrapping it up with steel sheeting, something that made it almost as heavy as a parking stop, but a lot more solid. The top part of the weapon was banded with a second sheet of steel, which made it very jagged.
    When Lana stepped in front of Ricardo to speak, he saluted, which was followed by fourteen more Ogryn salutes, each of them holding it until Lana saluted back. She began speaking: “Ricardo, we’re still a team, right?”
    “We team, you commander.” He nodded and smiled.
    Lana remained serious. “As your commander, you need to do WHAT I say, WHEN I say to do it, right?”
    She cringed as Ricardo and his Ogryns responded with a loud, "SIR, YES SIR!”
    “Okay, I want all of you to stay here, behind these buildings until I say GO. Then you attack. UNDERSTAND?”
    There was another round of “SIR, YES SIR!”
    She looked at Ricardo, who had slung his ripper gun and was holding one of the makeshift clubs. She spoke to him, wanting to make sure. “There’s no need to use your ripper gun. Keep it slung unless you have no other choice.”
    He nodded affirmatively.
    Ricardo had also been given a headset com, the only Ogryn to have one, linked to her com. She spoke into it, making sure. “You hear me, right?”
    He shouted in to the com. “YES, SIR...I HEAR!”
    Lana cringed again, then made a face, imploring, “not so loud into the com, okay, Ricardo?”
    He almost shouted again, then controlled himself, answering, “yes, sir.”
    “If I need you guys to retreat, I’m going give you that command over the com.” Lana explained seriously. “You’ll then try to get all of your squad members over to that park I showed you, right?”
    “Yes, sir...I remember place.” Ricardo responded, apparently understanding fully. “We wait at park until you come or say go.”
    She smiled, then said, “good. You stay here for now.” She touched his hand, her voice becoming concerned. “You know you might take casualties, right? Some of you might even die.”
    He frowned, determined, then, after looking left and right, there was another round of “SIR, YES SIR! WE READY SIR!”
    Lana joined the rest of her team. All of them, except Zane, had been armed with several blind-smoke grenades each. However, Zane had insisted not to be left out, wanting to make up for his earlier mistake, even though wounded. He seemed to be sure of himself flying the shuttle even with his injured arm, so she ordered him to land it up on top of a nearby five-story building, keep it stealthed and remain there as a look out.
    Then Lana got a call. It was Davis: “LaFong, three Chaos Rhinos got on the road and are almost to your location. Most of the city has already been evacuated. I suggest you join them.”
    The Federal Captain and his squads had joined Yarrick’s group; she could hear him in the background giving orders.
    “Where are the other Rhinos...the ones with the heavy weapons--and Ahriman’s Rhino?” Lana needed to know.
    “We’re currently engaging the Chaos heavy weapons over here.” Davis responded. “I have no idea where the other Rhino is.” He sighed, thinking, then repeated, “those three Rhinos coming your way are all loaded with those Thousand Sons Chaos Marines, the ones with the Inferno Bolt ammunition. During our first firefight, we didn’t kill very many of them, so I would guess, all together, there’s about twenty or thirty of them.”
    He seemed to be waiting for a response...
    Then Zane spoke up. “I see three Rhinos coming our way...about eighty meters.”
    Then Davis spoke again, strongly repeating, “I suggest you guys get the hell out of there.” He waited a second, then continued, “unless you have a plan. What are you going to do about all those Thousand Sons?”
    Lana looked at the Ogryns, grinned, then answered the Captain, equally serious, “I’m planning on pounding them into a whole bunch of little bitty Sons.”
    Her team then spread out, each finding a building to hide behind...waiting, grenades ready. Lana was hoping the Ogryns could ambush the Thousand Sons while they were still inside their Rhinos. Two Ogryns could easily flip a Rhino over on its side; she had told them to flip them completely over, which would knock out the twin-linked bolter mounted on top.
    “They’ve stopped.” That was Zane, speaking emotionally concerned. “Damn...they’re lowering their ramps!”
    Lana then ordered her team to throw their grenades, three of them each. As the blind smoke quickly covered the enemy area, her team ran back and away. Lana began shouting to Ricardo, ordering, then pointing, “GO, Ricardo! Go get them–-ATTACK!”
    The Ogryns charged, roaring loudly. When they entered the smoke, she briefly heard the sound of bolter fire, followed by even louder roaring, bashing, and smashing.
    Zane tried to give a play by play account from his location, saying how he saw the occasional dark-blue battle suit fly up out of the smoke then through the air, sometimes smashing up against nearby building...then he reported two Rhinos out of action, turned completely over.
    Lana stood with her team way away from the ensuing melee, ready to react to anything unforeseen, which happened only once when they spotted one of the Thousand Sons fly over the top of a one-story building, then smash up against the wall of a building nearby. At first, they thought the Chaos Marine had to have been killed; but, when it started moving, they riddled it with bullets until it lay still, each sighing with wide eyes afterwards.
    After about five minutes, the battle was over and the smoke started to dissipate. Ricardo and his squad had obviously won, but not with out casualties: as her team joined the Ogryns, they saw two of them down, another five wounded. All that was left of the Thousand Sons were smashed and broken battle suits. Two of the Rhinos were upside down, any crewmen dead, Ricardo proud to say he shot the last twin-linked bolter crewman with his ripper gun.
    There were also three dead Chaos Sorcerers, each laying twisted and broken in a pool of their own black blood. One of them was missing his helmet. Lana was joined by Jennifer as they looked at his lifeless, putrid-yellow, head hanging down out of the battle suit. The top of his bald head had about twenty holes in it, each about ten millimeters in diameter. Both women jumped when something came out of one of the holes--a long black worm. It flopped on the ground and wiggled, then disintegrated.
    Now Jennifer understood. “That must’ve been a mature Chaos Worm.” Her face wrinkled in disgust. “God, their heads must be full of them.”
    The two women stood and watched as several more Worms wiggled out, then disintegrated in the same way as the first one. Ramcke and Burns came over and looked, Burns almost throwing up.
    Lana then remembered the Ogryns. She called, “Ricardo, Ricardo.” She got his attention, then sighed when she saw he had been wounded. “Ricardo, take your team over to the park, try to care for your wounded as best you can. I’m going to try and get a medical team over there as soon as possible.”
    The big Ogryn smiled and grinned, then, after a sloppy salute, began giving orders to his squad.
    Suddenly Lana got a call; it was Davis. “LaFong, what’s going on over there? Where are those Thousand Sons?”
    “We got them,” she answered nonchalantly, then asked, “have you spotted Ahriman’s Rhino?”
    Davis sighed with disbelief. “What? What do you mean--you GOT them?”
    “They’re all dead.”
    The Federal Captain found it hard to believe as he broke the news to Yarrick.
    The High Commissar responded with a simple, “told you.”
    The Captain started to ask, “how--”
    “Look--I had a big squad of Ogryns over here with me.” Lana interrupted. “THEY did all the work.”
    Davis laughed loudly, then wanted to know, “where the hell did you get Ogryns?”
    “From Tain. I had a friend there.” She suddenly remembered, speaking urgently. “Hey...I need a team of medics over here as soon as possible. Make sure they’re able to treat Ogryns. Some have been badly wounded. They’re all at this location.” She sent him a coordinates location tag.
    “I’ll get on that right away.” Davis answered, then began relaying the information to an assistant.
    Yarrick responded next. “I’m going to send down a shuttle from my personal yacht to help.” He laughed and shook his head. “Ogryns. I would’ve like to have seen that.”
    “Well, you wouldn’t have seen much. The melee took place inside a big cloud of blind smoke.” Lana then had to ask again. “Hey, have you guys spotted Ahriman’s Rhino?”
    “No, I’m sorry we haven’t.” Davis responded. “I’ll let you know if we do. Davis out.”
 

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