Chương 75: Volume Two - Chapter Twelve - Overcliff

The Aquila touched down, and the ramp immediately started to open up. Alexis was surprised for a moment, and not sure what to do, but then Octavia unbuckled herself and was moving towards the exit.

"Come on, cog-girl, this isn't a leisurely stroll we're going on."

"Oh, right!" Alexis said. She undid her seatbelt, then jumped over to CS-3-2/11 and started to unstrap her servitor. KYS, meanwhile, undid her own belt and moved over to K84-321 and started to take care of him. Soon enough all of her friends were free, and she ran out of the back, the three of them behind her. Alexis raised a hand against the wash of dust being kicked up by the thrusters of the ship. Almost as soon as she was cleared, the Aquila started to lift off the ground.

Around them, in a fairly open field, were four Arvus Landers. The boxy ships were quickly unloading the rest of Task Force Snakebite. She figured she had all of a minute or two to get her bearings before things grew complicated. So, first, the gravity. Alexis bounced on her toes and noticed two things. First, she was lighter here than on The Broken Scale. Not exaggeratedly so, but it definitely felt like she had shed ten pounds or so. Like taking off a heavy pack after a long day of wearing it.

Second, the ground was a problem. Her feet ended in blunted points. They were fine for walking in a ship. The ends had some flex to them that auto-adjusted, so even on uneven grating, her stride was kept intact. Unfortunately, a small area of contact on muddy ground meant that her feet sank into the dirt up to what would have been her lower calf if she had one. Tsking to herself, she reached over, grabbed K84 for support and then tugged one leg free.

She adjusted it, the foot widening and becoming flat, like the backside of a big spoon. That spread her weight out far more evenly, but now she was two inches shorter than she had been. Annoying, but she could live with it. Next, the surroundings. They had to land in an open space. It was the only option when they had so many landers to find room for. That meant a plain about a klick away from the base of Overcliff keep. The space was wide and muddy, and surrounded by sparse woods.

It smelled like mud and tress and nature. She didn't much care for it. It might have been a little clichéd for a member of the Mechanicus to prefer the scent of recycled air and incense and oils, but she found those far more comforting and reassuring than... tree smells. The woods grew thicker the further she looked into them. They were going to have to walk through that, at least until they found a road of some sort. Next, she looked up and took in Overcliff.

The keep was built into the side of a massive cliff that loomed over the entire area. The cliff was a wall of sheer rock, broken only by a trio of craters blown into the stone and by the naturally jagged edges typical of a cliffside. Above that, she knew, was the keep's landing bays, and behind that, the entire plateau above was one massive forest that was growing out of a swamp that stretched out for several kilometres.

There had once been a small town not too far from the base of the cliffs, but two dozen years of neglect and orkish occupation had ruined that. At least according to the aerial scans they had taken before making landfall.

"Alexis!" Octavia called out, which had her jumping. The Arvus Landers were taking off, grass and small debris being kicked away as the ships rose ponderously into the air. Then they started to move away faster, and Alexis took the opportunity to start jogging towards the others. There was a whoosh, and when she looked up, she caught sight of three missiles streaking through the air, trailing long plumes of smoke that led back to Overcliff. Two missed.

The last rammed into the slowest of the Arvus Landers while it was just a few hundred metres out and the entire backside of the vehicle exploded apart. She gasped as the lander spun in a dizzying circle as it spiralled down. She couldn't see where it crashed beyond the treeline, but the massive earth-shaking boom and the fireball that rose out of it were hard to miss.

"God Emperor's sweaty asscrack," Octavia said. Alexis looked to her friend.

"They know we're here," she said.

"Yeah. Wasn't exactly a stealth op, but I was hoping to get the drop on them," Octavia said. Then she straightened.

"Everyone! Retreat to the woods! We're out in the open here. Come on, double time it!" The group moved. Octavia pointed to the side, where the four tech priests were lingering around a set of heavy-looking crates.

"Voidsmen, grab those, dammit! We're not leaving our tech boys behind." Alexis gestured, and K84-321 stomped over and picked up one of the heavier-looking crates. Then she ran as quickly as she could to catch up to the others. The two sergeants with the Voidsmen were barking orders, but the group, as a whole, seemed rather professional about this. The Broken Scale hadn't sent down a group of nobodies; these were all veterans. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

They made it to the woods, and Alexis noticed a lot of people glancing at her and Octavia. Right. Even if they were veterans, technically the two of them were in charge. Even her fellow Tech Priests looked to her for confirmation.

"Ah-" she began, but her voice immediately cracked. That was it. It was over. She was going to let the orks take her. Octavia snorted, then took over.

"Alright. We need to get to safety and fast. Do we still have vox with The Broken Scale?" When one of the vox-operators confirmed it, Octavia went on.

"Sisters, take the lead. Ah, but switch to bolters. Forests are flammable. Lieutenant, you know your men best, form up behind our spearhead. Tech priests and medicae at the back." Alexis swallowed.

"Um. We have some servo skulls for scouting, right?" she asked while turning her attention to the four tech priests. Her eyes locked onto the only one of them she knew. Red-C61734 nodded.

"Confirmation: We have several servo skulls equipped with auspex scanners."

"Good. Send two of them ahead. We don't want to walk into an ambush," Alexis said.

"KYS, scout." Her servitor bobbed her entire upper body, then launched herself up and into the branches above. That would have to do.

"Alright, let's move," Octavia said. Alexis fell back. The soldiers and sisters took the lead, but there wasn't really room for her servitors. She did quickly come to realize that her first impressions were correct. Forests and woods were disgusting and crude, and lacked the certainty of steel. The Omnissiah would never approve of places this damp and wet and which smelled so weird and which had insects.

"Insects are heretical," she muttered as she waved her mechanical arm around and tried to shoo away some of the more infuriating bugs. She hissed and smacked herself on the neck, and her hand came back bloody. One of them had bitten her!

"K84-321, ready your Heavy Flamer," she said. The pilot light on the gun slung over her servitor's shoulder clicked on. Eventually, they made it to a road, and Alexis was never so thankful to be standing on cracked ferrocrete. The road was, according to the map she pulled up on her augs, one of the main routes between Overcliff and the small town that House Kronis, which had ruled here, controlled some time ago, before they fell.

"Warning: I have enemy contacts on forward auspex," Red-C61734 said.

"Further: I see... one large vehicle. Three small vehicles. Two squad-strength groups on foot. Estimate: three minutes until contact."

"Ambush positions!" Octavia called out.

"Alexis, can you take care of the big vehicle?"

"I... yes!" she said. They had a few heavy weapons, but mostly that meant some of the heavy bolters the sisters carried and a few expendable anti-tank launchers that the Voidsmen had packed. There were plenty of breaching charges, and some melta charges too, but those would require more than three minutes to set up. Everyone scurried to the sides of the road, where there was a small dip in the terrain and a bit of a ditch to hide in. Others went deeper into the woods, where the trees would provide cover.

Alexis scrambled to the side as well, then she ordered K84-321 to the middle of the road and CS-3-2/11 to the side. It wasn't long before she heard the orks coming. They weren't exactly what she would call subtle. Their vehicle's engines roared, barked and bucked, clearly struggling to function properly, and the people within that ride were no less loud with their hooting and hollering. She saw them soon enough. There was a large six-wheeled truck.

It may have once been a standard Imperial vehicle, but much of the chassis had been ripped away. A flat prow covered in spikes was added to the front and armoured plates were crudely welded onto the sides and hood and over the windshield. The flatbed was currently housing about a dozen green-skinned orks, all of them waving crude swords, clubs, and guns. The three smaller vehicles looked like a mix of ATVs and motorcycles, cobbled together with little skill and ridden by both orks and the smaller gretchin.

When they saw K84-321 in the middle of the road, instead of doing the smart thing and slowing down, they sped up. A heavy gun fixed to the side of the truck opened up, and Alexis winced as rounds pinged off of her friend's armour. That would scratch the paint! Then the truck covered the last dozen metres in a rush and rammed into K84. His feet dug into the road, cracking the ferrocrete and digging a three-metre furrow as he was pushed back.

His large pneumatic hands crumpled the entire front of the truck like a tin can being crushed in a vice. Several orks went flying. Those were the only ones that survived as K84 brought his heavy flamer around and then lit up the entire truck in a wash of bright flames. This was it, their first encounter with orks, and it was going down with about as much civility as Alexis expected.