Kurgen jumped in spite of himself as the klaxon howled again. He couldn't believe they were still advancing. He stood with a dozen other Tech Guard gazing out of the arched window slits of the baston. Outside the darkness was lit by a flickering maelstrom of fire and explosions. Bolts, beams and tracer fire rose out of the night across his entire field of vision, all of it incomming. Out of morbid interest he flicked his camera eye to infra red so that he could see the shimmering of the void shields as they absorbed the shots directed at the towering form of the Imperiator Titan.

In the space before the klaxon howled a second time, Kurgen saw the shields flare yellow three times, three shields down. Cold sweat ran down his back at the thought of the shields callapsing altogether and letting that storm of enemy fire through.

As the wailing tone of the klaxon died, the Tech Guard braced themselves and hung on. Kurgen grabed onto the fluted pillar to the side of the window slit, planted his magnitised boot clamps in postion and let his lasrifile dangel in one hand like he'd been taught in basic training back on the forge world.

That seemed like a million years ago now, a half forgotton dream in comparision to the stark reality of the war on Gehenna. His imperator titan had waded through entire Ork calns, shattering, killing and smashing them, until their green blood washed the steps of its baston. But the Orks were fierce, brutal and relentless. They had fought dozens of battles without hesitation and looked set to fight a dozen more.

There was a delay, as half herd, half felt engines throbbed, before the floor shifted smoothly forward and the view through the slits tilted down to show cratered earth. The pits of Kurgen's stomach told him that he was being moved forward and up, and then down again. The baston settled into place sixty meters ahead of its previous postion with a revebrating clang, hydraulics squiling as thay pushed its armoured stairwell into the ground to anchor it.

Kurgen caught sight of dust clouds and red painted vehicles. A column of Ork buggies and wartracks was speeding forward throught a tumble of shattered walls. He shouted to his comrades over the din of explasions and machinery and they opened fire together. The red pulses of their lasers illuminated the ruins and he grinned as one of the ramshackle vehicles caught fire, skidded into another and wiped out both of them in a ball of twisted metal. The secondary batteries joined in and the ruins were rent apart by the impact of shels as the klaxon wailed and the baston swept forward again.

Now Kurgen could see a vast creater with the intact wals of a monolithic structure rising above. Smoke drifted across th scene, obscuring the base of the building. The incomming fire had slackened to almost nothing, but the quiet seemed rather ominous rather that reasuring. Wreackage was littered across the crater like weird metallic foliage. He murmerd, half prayed to himself, thatthis graveyard of machines was not an encoraging sight.

All sound suddenly became muted and distant as his ear protectors cut in automatically. After a breathless pause Kurgen felt his hole body quiver with the concussion as one of the primary weapons cut loose. He prayed to the Machine God that it wasn't the plasma anihilator. The princepts would only unleash those bolts of white hot plasma against somthing really massive, perhaps even big enough to threaten the Casus Belli itself.

Kurgen glimsed a detatchment of knights disappering ito hte smoke, their bright pennants flying bravely. Nothing else had changed. Suddenly one of the distant city blockswas lit by dozens of gun flashes and an instant later the baston shuddered as a salvo of fire crashed to the shields outside. Kurgen struggled to keep his footing as he saw what he'd taken for a building advance in a cloud of dust. It's a Mega Garagant, he thought desperatly, as the night flared white in the unmistakable actinic glare of the Plasma Annnihilator ...

From White Dwalf 178

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