Chapter XIV: The Lost Platoon
Becker shook his head at the luck of his platoon. Cut off from the rest of the
company, and now left on its own with a very large force of Eldar surrounding
it? There were few chances left for their survival.
He turned to Rodney and motioned for the commlink, which Rodney quickly handed
to him. He pressed the transmit button, then spoke into it. "This is
Becker. With the rest of C Company leaving the area, am I clear to take over all
air and artillery support?"
The man he'd been talking to earlier answered. "Some of the fire is being
kept to cover the company's retreat, but we can give you most of it."
"Good. I'll need a crawling line of drops, starting where my comm officer
tells you, and moving back towards the position of our base at intervals of ten
yards."
"Roger."
"Becker out." Becker turned and handed the commlink back to Rodney,
who began relaying the necessary coordinates.
He stuck his head up over the rim of the foxhole, watching the continuous
bombing and shelling. Dozens of Eldar were caught in the explosions, and the
others felt it was best if they fell back instead of advancing into the ring of
fire.
Becker hopped up out of the hole, hoping this would be his last time having to
do so. He raised his autorifle, then thrust it forward. His message was picked
up loud and clear by the platoon. They leapt from their holes, dragging the dead
and wounded with them, and began advancing, weapons at the ready.
* * *
Sara looked at the devastation around her, and felt sorrow in her heart. The
forest was virtually destroyed in the area the fighting had been going on.
More explosions tore apart more trees shortly in front of the platoon. They
walked perilously close to them, hoping they would be protected from any more
Eldar ambushes.
Sara found out soon enough that they couldn't escape the Eldar. A hail of
shuriken flashed by her, some of them cutting deep into her shoulder as they
passed.
She turned, opening fire with her autorifle at the nearest target. Pain flared
up in her shoulder, the gun's recoil making her arm spasm. She nearly dropped
her gun, but instead switched the arm she held it with.
From both sides of the platoon aliens came running at them. They ran into a hail
of fire, from autorifles, heavy bolters, and missile launchers rapidly being
loaded with frags. Grenades, bother Imperial frag and Eldar plasma, were thrown
at the Eldar, keeping them a distance away.
* * *
Jim stumbled forward, firing wildly to the side and slinging grenades at any
Eldar that got close enough.
The woods were thinning, and he had no hopes that it would signal a better
chance for the soldiers to escape. More and more were being wounded as the
retreat drew on, and they were lucky not to lose anyone else for good.
Suddenly the trees opened up to a field of tall grass, allowing for quicker
movement. The soldiers started moving more rapidly, trying to get away with all
haste.
But what waited for them filled their hearts with dread.
A large flight of Eldar grav-tanks advanced rapidly, already training their
weapons on the emerging troopers.
"Go to ground!" Becker cried out.
Jim needed no convincing that that was the move to make. He fell to the ground,
rolling from where he'd dropped. He began crawling away from the position the
platoon had just been, scattering as they had all been told to do in such a
situation. It would prevent them being killed by a lucky blast.
He ran into Sara, whose right shoulder was badly torn and bleeding too much for
his liking. "Hold up!" he whispered, putting his arm on her left
shoulder and turning her around.
"We can't stop here!" she said, her face showing more terror than Jim
had ever seen.
"You have to get that shoulder patched up, Sara. You're gonna bleed to
death if you don't."
"It's not that bad..."
"Maybe not entirely that bad," Jim replied, "but bad enough that
you're going to get bad sick either from blood loss or an infection, which might
kill you anyway."
"So? What do you suggest?"
"That I patch it up, of course."
"Here? Now?"
"Good a time as any."
Without waiting to hear any more protestations from Sara, Jim pulled out her
medical kit and began patching her up.
* * *
Mack crawled around for a long few minutes, too frightened to stick his head up.
Around him the sounds of explosions, whistling shuriken, and a more than a dozen
other weapons made it abundantly clear that what was going on wasn't enjoyable.
But amongst all of these other sounds, he heard a new sound, one that he'd heard
before, one he knew quite well.
The screaming of Imperial fighter engines.
He looked up and saw two flight elements of Lightning strike fighters swooping
in low, their missiles detaching from their wings and streaking forward quickly.
Explosions came soon after, and Mack peaked up over the grass for a moment to
see the results.
Many Eldar tanks lay gutted in the field, blasted by Hellstrike missiles.
Another pair were riddled with shots from a Lightning space superiority fighter
came streaking in and strafing them with its autocannon and lascannons.
Mack stood up, laughing at the joyous sight. Bombs dropped on the Eldar gather
behind them, and Lightnings of both types rained death on the tanks from above.
The Eldar were trapped in a situation they could not escape from, much like the
Guardsmen had just moments before.
But the Eldar got some minor revenge. A Lightning SSF flew over a line of
Falcons, driving into them with its three guns. Many of them fell to the ground,
fresh holes rent in their armoured bodies. Another Falcon swung around and fired
its pulse laser as the Lightning turned away, piercing the fighter's wing and
causing it to spiral towards the ground.
The fighter's wing hit hard, knocking the fighter spinning in the opposite
direction. Its other wing hit the ground, and the fighter stopped spinning. It
instead began a long, slow slide along the ground that tore the wing off, then
crumpled the nose as it fell and impacted. The remnants of the fighter began
rolling, its ordnance exploding as it did, followed shortly afterward by its
engines. The resultant fireball continued rolling through the jungle, lighting
up many trees.
A second Lightning was unlucky enough to be caught in the combined fire of two
squadrons of Falcons, its armour being of little use against dozens of rapid
pulse laser shots.
The damage had been done, though. The Eldar force was in disarray, having been
hit hard by numerous Earthshaker cannons and a half dozen squadrons of strike
craft.
* * *
Becker's heart leapt with joy at the sight of the retreating Eldar.
"Form up!" he shouted, and the soldiers of his platoon once again
began reforming into squads, though many more were wounded now.
They began walking in the direction of the base again, the Eldar moving out of
the area quickly and presenting no threat.
A deep rumbling sound caught Becker's ears. He raised a hand to stop the
platoon, then scanned the field, trying to find the source of the noise.
When he found it, he felt so overwhelmed with relief that he feared he might
have a coronary attack then and there. He turned to the soldiers and proclaimed
for all of them to hear:
"It's an Imperial armoured column! The cavalry's arrived!"
* * *
Bill smiled as he watched dozens of Leman Russ rumble onto the field, blasting
away at Eldar tanks. Almost three dozen Chimeras rolled up, disgorging troops
from another regiment. They engaged quickly in a heavy firefight with the Eldar
foot soldiers, pushing back the Eldar even further.
A company of Leman Russ Exterminators, a full ten of them, rumbled up ten yards
from the company. The turret hatch on the lead tank opened, and a crewman popped
out, a man around the age of thirty.
"Hello there, fellows!" he shouted. "What would you say to a
ride?"
"It would be an honour!" Becker shouted in return.
"Hop on!" the man said, slapping his turret for emphasis.
Wearily and gratefully, One Platoon's members got onto the backs of the tanks,
taking along their fallen comrades with them. Bill got on a tank with a red two
on the side. A young man in a tank officer's uniform smiled at him.
"Hear you had a rough time of it out here, 'ey?"
Bill nodded, slinging his sniper rifle on his back. "Yeah. Feels like the
whole damned Eldar race was out to get us."
"Good thing we came along then, wasn't it?"
"Yeah. I don't know what we would have done if we'd had to walk all the way
home after single handedly wiping out half the galaxy's Eldar."
The tank officer shook his head, laughing. "You ground boys are so amazing
sometimes."
"Yeah, we're just full of surprises."
* * *
Bob sat in the base's bar, drinking a large beer. He felt far worse than he
looked, and with numerous cuts, bruises, scratches, and a uniform that looked
like it'd been taken through a knife fest and then dumped in a swamp, that was a
hard feat to accomplish.
The drink had been provided "on the house". The soldiers of One
Platoon were being heralded as heroes, treated as if they'd won the fight alone.
Naturally, the armoured column's crew and fighting men got some recognition, as
did the pilots and crew of the strike craft, but Bob felt it was much less that
they deserved. He had been out in that fight, only two hours before, and he saw
what the arrival of the reinforcements had done for the platoon. He also knew
wat would have come to pass had they not been saved by their allies' timely
arrival.
He took a long sip from the beer and sat it down. A young soldier from some
other regiment came up. His uniform was a tan colour, more suited to the desert
than this world.
"Hey there!" the young man said, a bit too cheerfully for Bob's
liking. "How does it feel being a hero and all that, toast of the
base?"
Bob took another sip of his drink and remained silent for a moment. Then he
turned and looked at the other soldier, who seemed startled by the serious look
in his eyes and on his face.
"I want to ask you something," Bob said.
"Er, yeah, okay. Fire away," the young man said. This was obviously
not the response he thought he'd get.
"Do you know who Alan Burton is?" Bob asked, his voice low.
"No, I can't say that I do."
"Alan Burton was my squad's missile launcher loader. He was carrying all of
the missiles for our missile launcher. We had to go to ground, and those
missiles, missiles he'd volunteered to carry, missiles he knew would weigh him
down, caused him to not be able to go to ground quick enough. A shuriken
ricocheted off a tree, right into Alan's face. It lodged deep in his head,
killing him almost instantly, undoubtedly causing a lot of pain in t he few
seconds he lived before his spirit departed. That, son, is a hero. Not someone
who just managed to survive while doing his duty."
Bob slowly turned back around on his stool, picking up the beer and taking
another sip from it.
The young soldier, too astonished to speak, wandered off.
END OF CHAPTER XIV
Continued in Chapter XV: Forward Progress
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