Chương 71: Volume Two - Chapter Eight - Return to Repair

Sylvie was in command of just shy of a hundred men. Three full squads of twenty, plus an additional heavy-weapons team, a vox communications team, and a few runners. It was more than the average platoon size, but that was expected. Every platoon on the front line was reinforced and had plenty of extra bodies. Bodies and the gear to outfit them were some of the few things they had enough of, at least this early into the siege.

It was fully expected that by the end, scrounging up a hundred uninjured men would be a tall task, verging on the impossible, but for now, it wasn't so hard. They were flush with new recruits straight out of boot, and the veterans of the last siege some six years ago were still young and spry and indebted enough to rejoin. She had lost nineteen men in the last hour. That moment, after pushing open the Eternal Pride's hatch and looking down was heavy. She had to shout down to Morgan, confirming the losses. Nineteen.

It wasn't even that big of a loss. Enough to get a reprimand, but almost anyone would agree that securing a knight pilot was worth that many soldiers' lives. Securing an entire knight, even a heavily damaged one, was worth more. She decided to stay in the cockpit for now, though she did shout down a few orders. The bodies of her men were carried back to a space on the other side of the trenches, laid out on wooden pallets off the mud.

They'd be returned to Death Bane, their equipment cleaned and refurbished, and their families compensated for the loss. The orks were piled up into a heap and someone emptied half a can of low-grade promethium atop them before lighting the pile up. The smoke was acrid and stank, especially since it was still raining and the air was heavy and fought the smoke and fire. Then the tractors arrived. A pair of them moved up behind the Eternal Pride and hooked onto the knight.

They brought skids that they jammed under its legs, and then the knight was unceremoniously pulled off of the battlefield, leaving a thick furrow in the mud where it passed. It wasn't too long before the knight was moving back towards the outermost wall. The defences around Death Bane were layered in threes. First was an open section, a wide plain that the orks would have to cross. This was occasionally mined, and scarred by a thousand years of pummelling artillery.

Then the trenches, the ones where she was stationed. Obviously, her platoon was one of several thousand, each responsible for a small space. Behind that trench was the outermost wall. It was six times as tall as the Eternal Pride and made of metre-thick ferrocrete with metallic plating over it. It held the shorter artillery pieces, and within that wall were barracks and mess halls and vehicle repair bays, as well as hundreds of kill zones, trapped passages, mazes, and stowage.

That wall was almost always lost in any protracted siege, but in some years it was enough to keep the orks at bay. Beyond that was another half-kilometre wide space, then a second, more complex array of trenches, with a taller, thicker wall behind where the really big guns were hidden. The few titans defending Death Bane were behind that wall, stationed next to the mansions and homes of the various noble and knightly houses.

There was plenty of land behind the middle wall, and it was only rarely touched by the orks. Finally, the last wall, protected by a narrow ring of trenches, and hiding the beating heart of the entire planet, Death Bane. The tractors dragged her knight around and into a large bay, then to the rear. She grunted as she was shoved around, but the knight was soon hooked up to a set of heavy chains which went taut and slowly lifted the war machine up to standing.

At the same time, a catwalk was lowered close to the hatch. She reached around, carefully going through the full shut-down procedure for the Eternal Pride. Then, and only then, did she step out of the cockpit, assisted by a tech priest who extended a mechadendrite to her. She dusted off her uniform, then eyed the thin priest. He had the right logos and insignia sewn into his grease-stained red robes.

"Can you repair him?" she asked. The tech priest looked at her, then warbled in binharic. He... they, turned their head towards the side, then gestured to another priest below. One who was considerably larger and who was even now looking up at the knight while gesturing some adepts and servitors forward.

"Thank you," Sylvia replied. There was no point in insulting the Mechanicus. Their worlds were close allies, and every knightly house needed them. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. She found her way around and down. She was tired. Exhausted even. Seeing the Eternal Pride held up like a corpse on a string made her stomach twist unpleasantly.

"Don't worry. With a bit of work, we can restore the Eternal Pride to an above optimal condition." She stopped mid-step, not caring that it made a servitor have to stop its motions.

"You... machine spirit, you can speak to me even now?"

"Of course. I am not encased and limited to the interior of a single knight. When you need items, equipment, or to have questions answered, you have but to ask." She nodded, slowly.

"I... you have my gratitude, machine spirit." She moved over to the tech priest who seemed to be in charge, then stopped. The ground registered the faint thumps of something large approaching, and when she turned it was to see a Knight Questoris moving closer. It had the purple markings of House Galloway.

"Ma'am!" someone called off to the side, and she glanced over to see Morrison, jogging over with half of his squad. He had some of their heavy weapons experts with him. She weighed her options, but the knight was deceptively fast. It came to a stop before her and the Eternal Pride and spun its torso around to face her. Then the knight's head looked down, locking eyes with her.

"Ah, so you brought it back." She straightened, then gave a quick, perfunctory salute.

"Sir," she replied. There was an order to these things. Her rank was often a burden, but at times it may be a shield. Though at this point, she was certain that House Galloway only barely cared.

"Hm. The squire-lieutenant? You aren't important enough," the knight said.

"Wait," she called out, then cursed herself for it. He was turning away, but he did wait.

"Why?" she asked.

"Why did you turn traitor? Why... attack us?"

"Traitor? No, it is the Krast who are the traitors. Sitting atop their tallest towers, sipping on wine while the smaller houses toil below. I lost a cousin last siege. My older brother the one before. And before that, three minor knights. We are being bled dry by people who can hardly be made to bother noticing."

"But you still shot us in the back. Will you even stay to help against the orks?" The man snorted.

"The green rabble? Let them come. With how few knights remain, we are hardly going to make a difference, are we? You can keep your broken toy. Maybe it will allow you to kill even one more greenskin." The knight stomped away. She noted its name. Bane of the Triumphant. Sylvia moved to the tech priest and bowed.

"Sir. Forgive my brusqueness, but as the current knight pilot of the Eternal Pride, I must know. Can he return to the battlefield?" The tech priest turned to stare at her.

"Identification." She gave it, both her serial number and full name and title.

"A squire? Information confirmed. I am Magos Tech-Wright Eisle Tayer. I have served the Omnissiah on this front for eighty-seven years. I can repair this knight." She bowed slightly.

"Thank you, Magos Tech-Wright Eisle Tayer. When will he be operational?"

"In nine days."

"No," she replied. The tech priest turned his full attention onto her, auspex clicking.

"In nine days. Without a replacement for the plasma decimator. The damaged twin siegebreaker cannons can be replaced. The decimator cannot."

"I need him ready by tomorrow morning," she said.

"Impossible."

"I don't care," she replied.

"But... I only need the volcano lance and one of the siegebreakers. I can be towed out to the trench for all I care." The tech priest stared.

"I am tempted to deny that request."

"Then we will find someone less capable to repair the Eternal Pride," she said. She had no right to demand that, but... The tech priest scoffed.

"You sully the machine with your haste. But... Accepted."

"Thank you," she replied before stepping back. She needed to kill xenos. If the Eternal Pride was able to stand out in a field and take some potshots at the enemy, then that might be enough.

"Machine spirit," she muttered.

"You said I earned favour by killing the xeno?"

"Indeed."

"How many of your points would it take to return him to full functionality?"

"An interesting query, and one with no simple answer. Do you trust others to commit to the repairs if given the parts, or would you rather take the more expensive option of replacing them directly? In either case, the range of costs, including catalogues, is from ten thousand seven hundred points to thirty-nine thousand." Sylvia did a bit of mental math. That was... a lot of orks.

"Perhaps it is good that they come to me so readily," she said.