Salamander

'Sergeant,' growled the voice of Agatone. 'I need your forces now.'

'On our way,' Dak'ir returned and cut the feed. He ordered his combat squad to move out. They left the dune swiftly, Illiad in tow, and went to liaise with Agatone and the others.

Rounding the vast bulk of the

Vulkan's Wrath,

Dak'ir saw that the medical tents were already emptying. The injured that could walk or be moved safely were trailing out in ragged groups.

Battle-Brother Zo'tan - from the other half of Dak'ir's squad - had taken charge of the armsmen and able-bodied human crew, forming them into auxiliaries. A quick head count revealed almost three hundred troops, divided into six fifty-man battalions, assigned squad leaders and commanders. The auxiliary had started to assume strategic positions around the medical tents.

They were the last line of defence, there to protect those still festering in their pallet-beds. Even though the badly wounded probably wouldn't survive, the Salamanders would not leave them to be butchered.

Brother-Sergeant Agatone was stalking towards them. Sergeant Ek'Bar remained behind where they had been discussing a holo-chart, and waited patiently.

Agatone dispensed with any preamble.

'We have three Tactical and one depleted Assault squad,' he began. 'Venerable Brothers Ashamon and Amadeus have also been roused from slumber by Master Argos.' The doughty forms of the Dreadnoughts loomed in the distance, prowling the extremity of the defensive cordon designated by Agatone.

As he looked, Dak'ir noticed acting Sergeant Gannon also up ahead. He was kneeling upon a high dune, his Assault squad gathered around him, surveying the orks through a pair of magnoculars.

Agatone was interrupted abruptly by the comm-feed. The sergeant pressed a gauntleted finger to his gorget, as his battle-helm was mag-locked to his belt.

'Go ahead,' he instructed.

Gannon's voice came through.

'I estimate four thousand enemy,' reported the acting sergeant, 'with assorted vehicles and bikes. Armament is mainly automatic chain-gun and solid shot rifles and pistols.'

'Good work, sergeant. To your positions. In Vulkan's name.'

'In Vulkan's name.'

Gannon secured the magnoculars and stood up. A second later he and his squad took to the air, jump pack engines screaming as they ignited, and trailing smoke and fire.

Agatone gestured to the middle distance, where the Thunderfire cannons had patrolled earlier. There was no sign of the tracked heavy guns now, or their Techmarine operators.

'The grenade line is still untouched,' he told them, 'and we've added additional explosive payloads. Our stratagem is to funnel the orks into it, launching a full assault into their vanguard when they're scattered, hurting and confused.'

Dak'ir regarded the greenskin splinter force as Agatone relayed his plan. The xenos had forged some distance between themselves and the parent horde; the latter was just a dense black line cresting a far-off high dune now. He also noticed that the splinter force had become stretched in its eagerness for a fight. A vanguard of bikers, trucks and the faster orkoid elements ranged ahead of a much larger body of greenskins comprising foot soldiers and rumbling half-tracks.

'See how they are spread?' said Agatone. It was wide, widening all the time as the speed-obsessed orks raced and tried to out do each other. Dak'ir was put in mind of a giant maw slowly opening as it prepared for its first bite. 'We need them to become a dense column.'

'Corral them,' said Dak'ir, seeing the potential at once to manoeuvre the fast, but brittle greenskin advance forces.

Agatone nodded, a slight hint of irritation in his manner. 'It is already in place.' He pointed to distant flanks, just beyond the Dreadnoughts. Dak'ir saw something moving there, obscured by the eerie half-darkness.

'Thunderfire cannons,' he thought aloud.

'Just so,' Agatone replied. 'Subterranean blast shelling will commence as soon as we've got the orks' attention. The tremors will force them into line. Any that don't will be dealt with by the Dreadnoughts.'

Dak'ir's eyes narrowed as he pictured abstractly the full realisation of Agatone's plan.

'We need bait to draw them in.'

The other sergeant nodded.

Dak'ir checked the load of his plasma pistol, then secured it in its holster again.

'I'll take a combat squad only,' he said. 'Where should we deploy?'

'Five Astartes is all I can spare, Dak'ir,' Agatone replied. He gestured to a patch of rocky ground about two hundred metres shy of the grenade line. 'That's your squad's position.'

It was as good a staging point as any. The rocks provided some cover and the ground was set into a small depression the Salamanders could use like a crater to hunker down in if necessary.

'Five Fire-born to engage a horde of about five hundred,' said Ba'ken, his tone sardonic. 'Good odds.'

'And the rest of the force - what will you do about the ork reserves?' asked Dak'ir.

'Argos is working on something,' Agatone replie looking slightly uncomfortable for the first time during the impromptu briefing, 'We just need to give him some time. Stall the greenskins.'

'How much time?' Dak'ir asked levelly.

Agatone's expression was stony.

'As much as we can.'

It didn't take an anthro-linguistic servitor to realise that Agatone's obvious misgivings were grave. The sergeant went on.

'Once the vanguard is eliminated, fall back to the second line. You'll see it because I'll be stood at it with the rest of our forces.'

'And after that, if the orks get through?'

Agatone snorted in mock derision. There was a sense of pathos to the gesture.

'After that it won't matter.'

CHAPTER TEN

I