The Ambush

Tempestor Prime Euric watched as his soldiers assaulted the makeshift defense arranged by the company. He watched his soldiers small heat signatures, lessened by their armour, through his occulum and rushed orders for retreats and redeployments through both vox and his slate monitron. 

As he did so he watched from the opposite side of the formations, behind the Command Chimera the captain sat in. He watched as the troops around the inoperative Tauroxes retreated to the Chimeras. He watched as the Chimeras began spreading out to assault the foliage where his men were. He watched the Sentinels with eager eyes.

Beside him were a small number of troops, two of them with meltas. They all sat unmoving, completely still besides the small motions Euric used to send information to the rest of his detachment. They were like lions, waiting silently for the chance to attack their unknowing target.

The Scions in the foliage were seemingly appearing out of nowhere to fire their shots, retreating, then appearing at another location in what seemed like a blink of the eye. Their training was so extensive that even with their heavy carapace armour on, they were able to perform their maneuvers with such speed and finesse. Their endurance was so extreme that even after 10 minutes of weaving in and out of the battle, their breathing was still regulated with deep and heavy breaths. Squads moved together and then broke apart, only to appear at another location shortly before sending another burst of heavy beams into the defenders.

Screams as soldiers died in the dead of night rang across the grassy plains and entered the ears of their comrades. Each one inducing more fear into the soldiers that did their best to defend their position against the ambush. Their orders were to follow the chimeras in order to support their advance into the enemy forces, but many of them were too afraid to go forward. At no point did they ever expect joining the PDF would lead them to such a brutal slaughter of their forces.

Euric watched the soldiers hesitate and a slight grin grew on his face. "Cease fire."

What was once a killing field of red lasers with the whines of their guns filling the field became relatively silent. Darkness now enshrouded the field besides the lights from the vehicles and the only sounds were idling engines and the cries of the wounded. All the soldiers were on high alert, their guns and vision waving across the field looking for any sign of the enemy soldiers which were previously appearing and disappearing before them. 

After 10 minutes of silence Captain Naevius was unsure of what to do besides have his forces condense and reorganize. All of his training was for protracted engagements, not for a sudden bloodbath then no contact. He did the best he could and covered their weak flanks along with giving words of encouragement to his shell shocked men. As far as he could tell what was once close to 2 thousand men numbered less than a thousand after about an hour long fight.

Just as he was considering falling back a sentinel squad gave a report, "Reading! Fifty meters left flank." It was a recon sentinel made for gathering forward intelligence. Looking at the reported position Naevius didn't see anything besides grass and its shadows, until he did. A lone figure stood in full bodied carapace armour, his helmet maglocked to his belt near his laspistol. All of the sentinels were already pointing their lights on him, unsure of whether to fire on a single target not holding their weapon.

Tempestor Prime Euric stood in the grass and glared at the captain, who was shielded by the armour of his Chimera of course. He stood silently for a minute and let the situation sink into the Captain's head. "Surrender now and the rest of your men will be spared."

The Captain let the request sink in and denied it with an order to his sentinels to fire on the man. As the multi-lasers warmed up and autocannons began spooling plasma shots from across the field hit a few, hotshot beams fired in the crew compartments of those without armour, and melta fire enveloped the ones left as the melta carrying troopers quickly ran through and fired at them until coming to a stop with their meltas pointed at the command chimera. As the captain was about to order the Chimeras to come save him, he got reports of Scions appearing from the grass right in front of the defensive lines they set up, holding them at gunpoint. Dozens of reports.

The Captain looked out at the situation around him and let out a sigh. No matter the outcome of the battle most of his troops would be dead. He opened the hatch to his Chimera and raised his hands through it, giving the order for his men to stand down.