respond by starting a low chant, which slowly rises in volume as uiey advance, until it drowns out the fire of heavy bolters and lascannon.
'Waa-ork! Waa-ork! Waa-ork! Waa-ork! Waa-ork! Waa-ork!' they bellow at us, the mountainsides echoing with the battle-cry as it gathers in pace and the greenskins work themselves up for the final charge.
Their shouts are joined by a series of muffled detonations. Huge fountains of snow erupt to our right, just above the ork army. As a single mass, an enormous crescent of snow billows out. The slope begins to slide down towards the aliens, boulders rolling along amongst the wave of whiteness, the sparse trees on the mountainside ripped up as the avalanche quickens, its momentum accelerating rapidly. The orks' cries of dismay are swallowed up by the roaring of tons of snow and rock bearing down on them, the slope turned into a death-trap by the cascading ice.
The ork march falters immediately and the army tries to scatter as die snowslide bears down on mem. The ground trembles violently, as it does under a bombardment, and I cast a nervous glance up the slope above, to make sure the effect isn't wider than planned. I must admit I breathe a sigh of relief when I see no movement at all, the glistening ice stretches up the mountain completely undisturbed. Ekul and his scouts did well. The gunners in the front trenches continue firing into the panicked horde even as the avalanche hits the orks. One moment there's a dispersing ork horde, the next there's just a solid whiteness, flecked with darker patches as orks and vehicles are hurled skywards, before being engulfed and disappearing from view.
Secondary slides pile up on top of the hill of snow now filling the valley floor, layering more deam onto the orks buried under the packed snow. Greaves's men start cheering, their cries of joy replacing the thunder of the avalanche. I notice that none of the Last Chancers join in, they're all watching the valley floor with determined expressions. I know what they're thinking. It's not going to be that easy, one quick avalanche and the orks are dead. It's never that easy for a Last Chancer. Sure enough, as the swirl of scattered snow begins to clear in the air, I can see a sizeable proportion of the ork army left. Stunned and dazed for the moment, but still more than enough to overran our defences once they gather their wits again. And now
they'll be even madder for the fight, eager to even the head count.
In the front trench, Greaves gets his poor charges to continue the fusillade into die orks, giving them no respite. A smart tactic, but I can't help but diink mat it's just Greaves wanting to shout at his penal troopers some more. A bright orange explosion lights die centre of die ork mob as a Dreadnought's fuel is detonated by a lascannon. A couple of odier Dreadnoughts and a single batdewagon survived die avalanche, but Greaves is directing his men well and the lascannons and autocannons soon reduce them to burning wrecks.
An odd tiling occurs to me as die orks forge their way back up the slope. Vehicles need fuel, and there's little to be found out in tins icy wilderness. The Kragmeerites have one-in-three of their ski-based Chimeras converted into fuel carriers for long range work, and it stands to reason that orks would need some kind of support vehicles. Not only for fuel, but for transporting ammunition and food. It's hard to see how tins army, small as it is, relatively speaking, could take a single Kragmeer station, never mind die three that have already fallen. And it's eight hundred kilometres across unbroken ice plains from die nearest to these mountains. Even if tiiey looted everything they could from die fallen stations, they'd have to move it around somehow. Orks are good looters, they can scavenge pretty much anything, and I was half expecting them to turn up in captured, specially modified Chimeras. It doesn't make sense that several thousand orks, hardy as tiiey are, could survive this long without that kind of backup. I don't know what the explanation is, but I start to feel uneasy about this. I'd speak to the Colonel, but I don't have any answers, and I'm sure he's made the same observations.
Lasgun salvoes join die heavy weapons fire as the orks dose. The greenskins begin to return fire, flickers of muzzle flare sparkling across die darkness of die horde as it breaks into a charge. Once more, diey break into tiieir war chant, faster and louder titan ever. The las-fire is almost constant now; Greaves has ordered the troopers to shoot at will rather titan volley fire. Orks tumble into die snow in droves, but die rest keep coming on, surging up die mountainside in a living tide of bestial ferocity.
They won't hold/ Poal says from beside me, his lasgun whining as he powers up its energy cell.
They might/ I reply, keeping my gaze firmly fixed on the front trench. The orks burst onto Greaves's soldiers like a storm, the poorly trained penal guardsmen no match for the orks' innate lust for close quarters combat.
'Pull diem back now/ I hear Poal whispering insistently. 'Pull them back before it's too bloody late!'
I see what Poal means as more and more orks pour into the trenchline. If Greaves makes a break for it now, we can give enough covering fire to keep die orks off his back. If he goes too late, tiiey'll be all mingled up and we won't be able to pick out friend from foe.
'Now, you fragging idiot!' Poal bellows, clambering to his feet.
For a moment I think that hard-headed Greaves is going to fight to the last man, taking his criminals into hell with him. But then movement from our end of the front trench, the left flank, shows men and women clambering up die back walls before the orks can fight their way along the trench to them. I reckon Greaves's own instincts for self-preservation must have kicked in. I can see him urging his troopers on, waving his arm towards us as he hauls himself tiirough the snow.
'Covering fire!' the order is shouted from further up the trench. Poal starts snapping off shots to our right, spotting a few dozen orks tiiat have broken from the trench and are charging after Greaves's men, trying to cut them off. The staccato roaring of a heavy bolter joins the snap of lasguns, and a hole is torn in die crowd of orks.
Colonel Greaves leads his men to our left. We're on the right flank of the second trench, about five hundred of them, half of the first-line force. The orks don't pause to consolidate their position in the front trench; they pour over the fortifications and spill up towards us. I pull my laspistol free and start snapping off shots - the orks are densely packed, I can't miss, even at this range with a pistol. The greenskins begin to disperse, trying to attack along a wider frontage, some of them breaking to our left in a bid to get around the left flank and encircle us.
Return fire starts sending up sprays of snow and Poal and I jump back down into die trench for shelter. The orks are spread into a dunning line now, concentrated more in front of us, but stretching out to die left and right.
'Prepare for hand-to-hand combat!' The wardens' bellows cany up the trenchline.
We cannot hold the trench,' I hear Schaeffer say next to me.
'Sir?' I ask, turning to look at him.
'One on one, these men cannot fight orks/ he explains quickly. 'Once the orks are in the trench, we cannot concentrate our numbers on them. And they will be very hard to get out again/
'Counter-attack, sir?' I suggest, reading the Colonel's mind, horrified by the thought of hastening any confrontation with the brutal aliens, but seeing there's litde hope otherwise. 'Hit them in the open?'
'Pass the word for general attack/ the Colonel shouts up the trench to our left. A moment later and he's grabbing the rungs of the trench ladder and hauling himself out. I follow him, and feel the ladder vibrating as others follow.