Chapter 482: The Fall of Refinery City
How difficult is it to command fifty million soldiers in battle?
Inside a military bunker beneath Refinery City, several hundred computer terminals and nearly a thousand senior officers worked around the clock, coordinating the effort.
Battlefield data poured in constantly, processed by successive tiers of officers, condensed and relayed upward through the chain of command, until it finally reached the infantry Marshal himself.
A general reported:
"Marshal, Regiments 235 through 268 have been completely wiped out. Regiment 311 has suffered heavy casualties, over half its strength, and the surviving 10% attempted to flee, but have been intercepted by the reserve Regiment 312."
The infantry Marshal, eyes bloodshot, gave the order in a low, flat voice:
"Regiment 312. Execute every deserter. Then charge.
Send Regiments 312 through 400 to the front line, all of them."
"Marshal! Regiments 312 through 400 came under fire from the xenos titan on their approach to the front! We've lost 12% of personnel!"
"Ignore it. Continue advancing."
"Marshal, the refining district has fallen to the xenos!!"
"Send Regiments 400 through 420. They need to hold for at least half a day!"
"Marshal! The residential district! A xenos force has broken through into the underground residential levels!!"
"Send Regiment 421 with explosives. Distribute bomb packs to the civilians. Let them choose: a meaningless death, or a chance to serve the Emperor faithfully."
"Marshal, Front A3 has collapsed!!"
"Send Regiments 422 through 500 to reinforce!"
"Marshal! The xenos have opened a new offensive push from the western front!!"
"Send Regiments 501 through 1001 to hold the line!"
"Marshal! Xenos tanks are attacking from the east!!"
"Send Regiments 1002 through 1500, coordinated with Tank Regiments 98 through 100, to hold!"
"Marshal! The xenos titan! It's breached the city! It just wiped out two entire regiments in a single strike!!"
"Send the nuclear demolition squad! Have them go blow it apart!!"
BOOM!!!
A nuclear detonation bloomed into a massive mushroom cloud above the city, killing enormous numbers of both humans and Orks alike.
But the intended target, the Gargant, emerged from the fireball's dust unharmed.
The Gargant's eyes flared red, and the next instant, a beam of crimson light lanced outward.
The beam swept from one skyscraper to the next, then a third, a fourth.
As the red light faded, all four towers, each several hundred meters tall, collapsed slowly, as if sliced apart by a colossal blade, crushing countless Astra Militarum soldiers beneath them.
Then, rocket pods bristling across the Gargant's frame fired in unison, unleashing several hundred large-caliber rockets, flattening entire city blocks in an instant.
Its right-hand gravity dish swiveled toward a trench line several kilometers off, and the infantry inside were crushed flat by the sudden gravitational spike, flesh separating from bone, the entire trench reduced to a smear of human paste.
BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!
BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!
Nuclear detonations rocked the city every single day, killing millions each time.
Ten days into the siege, the largest of the nuclear land-mines detonated, a yield potentially exceeding eighty megatons, blooming into a fireball fifteen kilometers wide across the urban district, its shockwave felt clear across a continental plate several thousand kilometers away.
But even through that rolling fireball, the Gargant emerged, still walking forward.
A shimmering layer of green light coated its armour plating. The exposed weapon turrets and their Ork operators had been wiped out entirely, but its main body remained completely, utterly unharmed.
It emerged from the swirling smoke, radiation clinging to it, and continued raining high-explosive shells down onto distant human positions.
Mekboys came swarming out from every corner, hauling heavy guns, cannons, and rocket pods, climbing up the Gargant's frame like a colony of ants, welding on a fresh layer of auxiliary weaponry, twice as dense as before.
Inside the Refinery City command bunker, a general reported to the Marshal.
"The nuclear ambush... failed. That monstrosity, an eighty-megaton detonation, and all it did was strip the auxiliary weapons off its outer hull...
Marshal, aside from the Emperor Himself, I no longer know what could possibly bring that thing down."
The infantry Marshal sat with his head in his hands, eyes hollow, unfocused.
"Regiments... how many regiments do I have left?"
The general let out a heavy sigh.
"Marshal, you have no regiments left. All fifty million. Dead. Every last one."
BANG!!!
The infantry Marshal slammed a fist onto the table and screamed, half out of his mind:
"BY THE EMPEROR!! CAN WE STILL BE SAVED?! I'VE GIVEN EVERYTHING I HAVE!!"
Inside the bunker's command center, nearly a thousand officers stopped what they were doing and stared at the Marshal, lost.
There were no more troops. Not one. Every officer standing here now had nothing left to command.
The Marshal breathed heavily for a long moment, his hollow, exhausted eyes suddenly sharpening.
"No. I still have troops."
He looked out at the officers gathered before him.
"I still have my officer corps!!"
He bellowed: "EVERYONE, HEED THE ORDER!! ATTENTION!!"
The nearly one thousand officers froze for a beat, then snapped to attention as one.
The infantry Marshal roared: "Officer corps, heed the order!! Drop your pens, drop your terminals! Pick up explosives! Prepare to charge!!"
With the order given, he grabbed a melta charge and strapped it to his own chest.
Once he'd finished securing it, he looked up, and not a single person had moved.
The Marshal roared furiously:
"DID YOU NOT HEAR MY ORDER?! OFFICER CORPS! PICK UP YOUR EXPLOSIVES! PREPARE TO ADVANCE!!"
Only then did the officers scramble into motion, panicked, majors and colonels, brigadiers and generals, every rank present strapping bomb packs to their own bodies.
The officers, shouldering the heavy explosive charges, eyes filled with dread, looked to the Marshal, having completely lost the capacity to think for themselves.
The infantry Marshal put on his peaked cap, straightened the dozens of medals across his chest, and walked toward the bunker's exit door, the officer corps following uneasily behind him.
The bunker's massive steel doors opened, revealing the war-torn ruin that had once been Refinery City, laid bare before the entire officer corps.
The air reeked of burning chemicals, radiation levels spiking dangerously in every corner, but the Marshal wore no gas mask, simply staring out at the apocalyptic landscape beyond.
Columns of Ork infantry and armoured vehicles rolled past the bunker entrance in formation.
Overhead, deathcopters and Ork rocket troopers filled the sky, an unbroken wave.
A massive Ork artillery vehicle, over ten meters tall and forty meters long, treads roaring, happened to be rolling directly past the bunker at that moment.
The infantry Marshal turned back for one last look at the terrified officers still huddled inside the bunker, then walked forward, climbed directly into the vehicle's grinding treads, and pulled the ring on his melta charge.
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