Night Duty: Guarding Basilisks (40K)

The planet was brown as far as the eye could see: brown hills, brown roads, brown trees and brown guardsmen in brown uniforms everywhere. The only thing that really stuck out was the black lasguns held by the soldiers and those were quickly being turned brown by the constant wind throwing flecks of dirt everywhere. Trooper Reth's eyes were becoming increasingly more tired of the bland color as he spent more and more time on this large dirtball of a planet.

"Hey, Tur, what was it you said about this place when we landed?" He questions the lanky trooper marching next to him. Tur scratches his thin beard in thought and looks upwards.

"Something about something?"

"No, about why we're fighting for this place?"

"Oh, yeah. I think it had something to do with how the Imperial Guard sends us to the best of places." A yawn follows the explanation.

"Thought it was funnier when we got here, I suppose." Reth says quietly to no one in particular.

The platoon of troopers that surround Reth keep on marching down the uneven dirt path towards the sound of loud explosions going off in the distance; the sight of the explosions fading away slightly before the sound gets to them. There is that dense overcast of voices that usually accompanies a group of bored men walking down a long path towards something they don't care about. Reth hears the voice of Corporal Utz and Trooper Liam a little in front of him discussing their orders and who's going to get first shift for night watch. A frown breaks out on Reth's face when he hears his name repeated.

"I sure hope these Basilisks are worth this." The thought sits uneasily in Reth's mind as his legs begin to ache from the miles long march.

. . .

"Wait a minute."

"What's the problem?"

"I get that we have to defend these big guns—that I get and can even get behind. What I don't understand is that we have to risk our lives for something named so…poorly. I mean just look at it. It's mocking us." Trooper Liam kicks the side of the Basilisk to drive his contempt home, his boot causing a dull thud.

"I like it. Short and sweet, gets to the point just like me." Tur says leaning against Liam and grinning lazily at his comrade's frustration.

"Just another reason I hate it." The passive insult from Liam draws no reaction.

"Certainly less a mouthful than what the big ships are called, I like that a lot." Corporal Utz is sitting down in the dirt next to his team members, his legs resting.

"It's called 'Asskicker 9' for Throne's sake!" Liam finally shouts. "I'd rather die defending something called…called 'Nobility of Sacrifice' or something like that! Not 'Asskicker 9'!" The shouts draw the crew's attention who offer their sarcastic thanks.

The Basilisks are all sitting neatly in a row a large number of meters between each one allowing for a tent to house munitions and a small bunker of sandbags that act as a home for the crews. The slightly larger tent behind them all with the symbol of the Mechanicus identified it as home of the Tech-priests who oversaw the gun's spiritual needs. The troopers of the Imperial Guard relegated to defending the guns from a sneak attack had to make due with bed-rolls and personal tents.

Trooper Reth was far away from his comrades arguing over the gun's choice of name and reading the minimal reports sergeant Hall had issued to every man in the platoon. The enemy the regiment had been sent to combat was still unidentified, but clearly one that would need the full weight of the Imperium to crush. The reports of survivors were all along the same lines with mutterings of death and their compatriots being ripped apart, but little in the way of concrete eye-witness of the enemy. Reth could feel his neck tensing as he read and had to scan all around him to dissolve any thoughts of being watched. The only similarity between all the reports was an overwhelming green color coming from the enemy ranks.

"Reth, get over here. The Basilisks are going to start firing any minute now. Don't want you going deaf or something now." Utz is running towards the younger trooper, shouting. Reth puts the reports into his pockets and gingerly stands up. "Never really liked green anyway." The corporal says when he notices Reth put the papers into his pocket.

"I used to."

. . .

The sound from the Basilisk was like a whip crack that sent up a thick layer of dirt and a tremendous backlash of air that sent more than a few Imperial Guard tents flying never to be retrieved. The guardsmen were all at their positions watching the approaches to the guns, but most were able to catch one shell being launched into the air and marvel at Imperium engineering.

Reth had seen heavy bolters being fired before, but that was by a crew of men on a mounted platform. He had seen the massive armor battalions of the Guard acting in unison and firing in unison. The trooper had even seen a large ork firing a twin-barreled weapon not a dozen meters from him, but the crack from the Basilisks was something else entirely.

It reaffirmed his belief in the Guard's victory on this planet and against the green tides that were moving against His subjects. Reth offers a small prayer to the Emperor in thanks for these guns.

. . .

The cloudless night did very little for the problem of sameness for the terrain around. The brown only became a muted brown. Reth was beginning to think the world was playing a cruel joke on him. At least it wasn't pitch black outside, Reth conceded.

Liam was sitting next to him his eyes looking out from their wall of sandbags. The trooper occasionally had to clean his glasses when the night wind brought specks of dirt with it.

The Basilisks had fallen silent hours ago when the reports of retreat along all fronts started to flood in. The news came as a huge relief to Reth whose imagination had given body and voices to all those reports. Orks were simple: They shouted and ran. Rebels likewise, but this was an enemy whose identity was unknown to Reth and he had to constantly stop his mind from drifting into the impossible. All the same, the lack of activity for the Imperial Guard also sat uneasily with him. Constantly pushing forward at all costs had become a staple in his life as a soldier of the Imperium.   

"Hey, how come we aren't pushing against the baddies?" Reth asks after an hour of silence. Liam shrugs without saying anything. "Doesn't it make sense to push the advantage?"

"You sound like Mittvoch or Goethers. I'm usually a little more duty-bound than Tur or even Utz, but it's nice to have a night off sometimes…even if it is absurdly boring. Let the front-line troops worry about that."

"I suppose you're right. Just feels like we're wasting time is all."

"Wasted time enjoyed is not wasted time." Liam says glancing over at Reth.

"True enough."

The two soldiers spend the next hour gazing off into the night trying not to pass out with mixed success.

"I'm gonna get some caffeine. Want some?" Liam finally says.

"Shouldn't you…"

"We haven't heard a thing in hours and I'm afraid I'll pass out on your shoulder any minute now." The trooper says already deflecting Reth's query. "'Sides, there's other guys around, loads of big guns behind us and we have the undefeatable sergeant Hall with us."

"Make it quick though." Reth asks while gripping his lasgun tighter.

"You've been in combat before, Reth." Liam mutters already walking off.

"Yeah, but at least I knew what I was fighting." The soldier thinks to himself.

The silence that follows is deafening to the trooper who usually hears a wide assortment of machine noises, men yelling, weapons firing. Even the once ever-present wind has died down; only the lightest breeze gets through.

His imagination starts running amok, turning every sound into his worst nightmare: An ork clad in black armor there, a tau heavy-tank there, a rebel knife-fighter crawling in the dirt over there. He has to mentally block all that imagery out which takes more effort than he'd ever be willing to admit. The lasgun becomes his own guardian, his grip tightening. Without thinking he clicks it over to full-auto and sets the power to maximum. The magazine would be spent in a few seconds, but he'd rather have an empty clip and a dead enemy than be dead himself.

Suddenly he hears scuttling two dozen meters in front of him. Reth's eyes dart to the source of the sound, his gun rising up and his finger jumping to the trigger. The young soldier remains seated, his legs refusing to follow his directions to stand up. Finally the young trooper gets the strength to stand—the growing scuttling sound compelling him more than anything else.

With uneasy steps and deep, deliberate breathes Reth moves to the sound, his lasgun still raised. The scuttling begins to sound more numerous as he nears it like millions of tiny armored legs marching across a steel table. The sound conjures images of hundreds of spiders clad in power-armor all coming for him and all more hideous than ork hordes or legions of tau.

The soldier glances behind him and sees the small wall of sandbags a dozen meters to his back, the Basilisks and tents still sitting like nothing's wrong. Reth ponders about running back to get help, but the sound increases until it's absolutely deafening and forces the trooper to move forward.

Finally he can tell where it's coming from, over a small hall and just out of his sight. "Of course." Reth mouths and creeps over to the hill still with his gun raised ready to fire at anything remotely threatening.

As he nears the hill the sound increases more and more until it's all Reth can hear—the millions of tiny armored spider legs crawling over him, into his ears and into his mouth.

Reth is standing just before the cusp of the hill, breathing deeply trying to muster his courage before seeing what the noise is.

He breathes deep and counts to three.

One, spiders crawl into his mouth picking away at his teeth, tongue and face.

Two, spiders crawl over his eyes, their legs resting on them.

Three, a large one digs into his sternum with its legs.

With a jump he looks over the summit with gun raised and eyes wide open. Nothing is there. The sound disappears immediately leaving Reth with only the fading images of spiders scuttling away. Reth starts to breath deeply, exhaling loudly and his shoulders slack around him as the tension leaves.

"Reth. What are you doing out there!?" Liam's voice cuts through the night and draws Reth's attention; his fellow is standing back at the sandbags with two cups of caffeine.

"Get back here!"

"Sorry, Liam. Thought I heard something is all." Reth calls back, lowering his gun and letting out a long sigh.

Before Reth can start to turn around he can hear Liam yelling again, but it sounds like a collection of shouts instead of words. He turns his head to look at his fellow and feels a heavy breeze from where his head used to be. The sensation calls his attention.

To his right, Reth sees a hunched, dark creature made out of a matte black metal, light green trim running around its body. The face is unmoving, unfeeling, a visage of an elongated skull. The eyes bore into the young trooper, the green slits worse than anything else on the creature. It tilts its head to the left and raises its hand again; Reth sees the long claws.

A scream erupts from the young man. Without thinking he pulls up his lasgun and squeezes the trigger aiming right at the thing's chest.

The first shots cause the creature to stumble and lean back. The rest of the magazine punches through the armor and sends it toppling over onto its side. With the lasgun set to max and firing on full-auto, the creature is dropped in a second of sustained fire.

"What in the hell was that!" Liam is yelling as he's running towards Reth. Other voices are yelling now all asking about the noise.

Reth is too busy running back towards the encampment to offer an answer.

He can hear screams now along with the yells. Primal yells he's heard before when an ork blade was about to cut a man in two. Around him Reth can see more of the creatures slicing up his fellow guardsmen, the Basilisk crews and even one of the tech-priests. Some are even donning the skin from their kills.

"Fire back! Throne-damnit! Fire back!" Sergeant Hall yells trying to reform his platoon.

"Set your guns to high and punch through them!" Reth yells to every soldier with a gun he can. Taking aim at one lurching towards a couple of Basilisk crewmen, Reth hears a click when he pulls the trigger and reloads quickly. The monster nears the two who are cowering, unarmed. Reth pulls the trigger of his lasgun, the red lances bouncing harmlessly off the creature.

Cursing his luck, Reth sprints up behind the thing and empties his magazine into its back. The few shots remaining in Reth's magazine stagger the creature, but don't punch through it. It turns its gaze on him, the green eyes still emotionless.

"Shit." Reth says pulling a magazine from his coat pocket. He tries to put it into his weapon, but the green eyes pull his attention and he drops it. "Shit, shit, shit." The words are barely out of his mouth when he notices the monster is only a few feet from him.

It raises its clawed hand ready to swing. Reth offers a small prayer to the Emperor.

"Not today you metal asshole!" The voice of Utz comes from Reth's right, his eyes shoot open and he sees the short trooper aiming a lasgun right at the monster's head. The crack of the lasgun is deafening when fired so closely.

The creature takes the first few shots, but succumbs once they start to punch through its head.

"Thanks." Reth says while scooping up his dropped magazine. He quickly reloads it while offering a prayer to the spirit within the lasgun.

"No trouble. Come on, there's a few left." The screams of men start to give way to the cracks of lasguns and the dropping of metal bodies onto the dirt.

It takes a few minutes to wrap up the rest; some begin to dodge the lasfire and require the efforts of a few troopers to put down. When the last one falls, Reth hears the scuttling again coming from one of the downed monsters. He points his lasgun at the head and pulls the trigger, the red bolts cracking through the head. The noise ends.

The young trooper runs over to Hall and mentions that every monster could come back to life. Sergeant Hall curses and sends the order out. The cracks of lasguns on max power overwhelm the night.

It takes a few minutes for silence to return to the camp. Soldiers reload their guns, Basilisk crews are moving their dead and wounded, Tech-Priests are offering prayers to the machine-spirits inside the mobile artillery platforms. Hall is ordering his long-vox caster to raise command.

In the distance, behind the camp, Reth can hear marching feet, thousands of them. Other turned heads tell him he's not alone.

"What is that racket?" Sergeant Hall calls out.

"Anyone else see all that green?" Tur says. Utz nods in agreement. In the distance, the horizon is lit up by a dull green. The advancing of the green tide accompanied by the marching makes it uniquely unsettling.

"That's more of them!" Liam yells out.

"Basilisks, spin around and fire!" Sergeant Hall orders the remainders of the crew who sprint to their vehicles, none question his orders. The Tech-Priests hasten their rituals. "Men, get to cover!" The platoon all take positions facing down the advancing horde. Reth and Utz take position looking directly down the path leading towards them.

The clear night allows Reth to barely make out the first shapes of the monsters coming. They don't move like anything he's ever seen—lurching like something dead and brought back to life.

"Basilisks ready?" Hall yells to the few remaining operation guns.

It takes a minute for all the crew to ready themselves.

"Last gun loaded and ready, sergeant!" A Basilisk pilot reports.

"Show these things the hammer of the Imperium!" The declaration is immediately followed by a dozen heavy guns firing in unison, their shells speeding over the remnants of the platoon.

Eruptions light up the night sky, but only reveal more of the things: creatures like bulky hovering scarabs can be seen, a large number look to be hovering off the ground with a weapon for an arm.

"Fire again!" Hall orders and the Basilisks are ready to comply. They reload in half the time and fire—the shells rending a number of the monsters in half. Another volley scores a direct hit on one of the scarabs and sends it toppling to the ground crushing a few of the monsters.

Still the things gain ground without regards to the artillery fire. They don't hasten, they don't take cover and they don't seem to care about casualties. Their skeleton faces become clearer as they near the guardsmen.

The Basilisks fire again sending up clouds of smoke and tearing apart a few dozen of the monsters. Still they come, silent and mechanical. The scuttling sound begins again, coming from the advancing hordes.

The Basilisks continue to fire, again and again only taking out small groups of the monsters coming up the path, the vacant spots are immediately filled with more of them. The skeleton faces remain unflinching. Reth can see legions of those green slits that make their eyes, all of them looking straight ahead without deviation.

When the first of the creatures is not a hundred meters from Reth, he sees a bright green flash race up the hill. Suddenly a torrent of the green flashes start to shower against the Imperial positions. Guardsmen who are hit simply disintegrate. Reth and Utz duck down as far as they can.

"Any ideas?" Reth asks Utz whose brow is clenched in thought. After a minute the corporal shakes his head no with an exasperated shrug. The young trooper curses.

The sounds of the marching feet start to grow louder and nearer, the intensity of the green flashes becoming more frequent.

Reth can see the Basilisks start to take hits. The armor giving way like nothing's stopping the green lances.

The marching feet grow closer.

Explosions start to ring all around and the green lances stop. Reth looks at Utz in disbelief for a moment; the two men poke their heads up and see dozens of Valkyries raining autocannon fire and bombs down onto the advancing hordes drawing all the green fire towards them.

"Lucky day. Hall must've got through." Utz says while taking a lho-stick from his pocket and lighting up.

"We're not done yet…" Reth begins but Utz waves him silent.

"Not much these things can do to them this far out." Utz says raising his lasgun. "We just prayer to the Emperor the Valkyries are enough."

The two soldiers continue watching the Valkyries rain destruction on the enemy. The green lances nail a few of the ships and send them crashing down, but most go wide.

After fifteen minutes of sustained bombardment, the last of the skeletons are downed. It takes Reth a moment to realize just how quiet the night is. After every other battle, Reth could hear scattered moans and screams of pain. He heard nothing like that from down where the enemy were coming. All he heard were smoldering fires, a few men talking and the Valkyries overhead moving to and fro. Just like the eyes, the lifelessness of the enemy was what terrified him.

"Emperor help me. This war could just kill us all." Reth mutters.