Nervous and inexperienced, the squad from the Endoran 3rd held a room in an old inn. It might have been a nice place once with walls stained brown by burnt lho sticks and that homely scent of spilled beer, were it not for the broken window, orkish scrawls and the old splattered remnants of a former human uprising. For now it served as a temporary forward ammunition dump/rendezvous point.

Then a man in a black coverall burst into the room, ducked under a stray reaction shot and pointed at the various fear stained faces.

“YOU LOT, FOLLOW ME!” he yelled. The guardsmen looked at him in surprise before their instinct recognised his sergeant's chevrons of authority and hurriedly followed.

“Sir, what's the plan?!” a corporal asked hurriedly as the troops trotted after the sprinting tanker. Then the door, and part of the wall around it exploded. A massive Ork waving around an engine block as a whiffle bat charged out of the dustcloud with a furious bellow.

“Run from that thing!” the man explained with a flash of white teeth. One poor sod instead decided to make a stand and emptied her lasgun at the rampaging nob. It swept her aside with an offhand and her body flew off like a ragdoll with a wet crunch. It did not appear to notice the fact it's face now sported several bloody lasgun wounds 

“IMMA RIP YOUR SPINE OUT HUMIE!” the Ork yelled.

“Name's Jack, Sergeant Vries if you feel formal.” the sergeant continued unperturbed. Pure adrenalin made Jack a poor imitation Ork of his own as he charged across the street into another door. The wooden door flew off it's hinges, saw marks clear on the metal. An empty manufactorum stretched ahead, built into a naturally occurring valley. The corridor with the guardsmen turned into a flimsy walkway two meters in, while dozens of workbenches littered the floor below. Metal chains protested loudly as the guardsmen thundered forwards. The chains went on strike completely when the Nob reached the walkway and with loud curses the creature plummeted to the workshop floor below.

“EVA BEEN STRANGLED WIV YA OWN INTESTINES?”

“That buys us a couple of secs, keep up!” Jack hollerred. Down below the Nob scrabbled to it's feet, and gripped the ruins of the workbench it landed on. With a mighty heave it ripped the bench clean off it's bolts. Jack did not hang around long enough to witness the impromptu projectile impact. Instead he hurried through the maze of ramshackle bridges and flimsy walkways, guardsmen trailing like a bunch of ducklings with lasguns.

“Where are we going?” a greenhorn asked.

“Heavy bolter emplacement. Here.” Jack replied. He ran out on a new street, this one with a clearly Ork dug trench into it halfway across. A heavy bolter defiled with metal bits and spikes rested halfway across, omnious black barrel pointing directly at the group.

“Traitor?!” one guardsmen yelled at Jack, eyes wide. Jack shook his head.

“To the orks maybe.” a voice called out, coarse and weary like a coal fired engine. A closer look at the barricades revealed many dity figures in rags. Hunched over ramshackle weapons, dirty lasgun and stubber alike held in thin hands. Then Jack bodily threw a guardsman at them.

“Don't just faf about you idiots! MOVE!”

“Buhwha?” was the most intelligent response he got. Fortunately for the guardsmen their bodies obeyed with considerably more intelligence, as they formed a gunline in the trench in mere seconds. Just in time, as the door they stormed out of, along with most of the wall around it, exploded. Again.

Like last time, the massive ork with the engine block was responsible.

“I WILL MAKE YA GARGLE YER-Aw zog.”

Over fifty lasguns, several dozen stubbers and one heavy bolter opened up as one.

“So yeah, short storytime. I got here on the first assault, give it about two dozen of this planet's days ago. Got lost while my unit was being fragged to the warp and back, soon found out the Orks still used human slaves in their factories. Got a little guerilla rolling while you guys massed up for another attack. Open revolt is kinda hard with the food shortages so most loyal imperials are chilling in safe houses guarded by the most able with whatever weapons we managed to squirrel away. Look for drawings of Ollanius Pious, make sure to yell Deus Vult before you go in or you'll be shot. Need water.” Jack summarized. One hearty swig from an offered flask later he started to talk again.

“Okay you can best stay here and try to link up with whatever unit you're from. I'll give you my contact codes for the radio. Now, fill me in, what's happening where, roughly?” Jack said as he pulled out a dataslate with a map. One brief briefing with the most senior Endoran guardsmen present left Jack with a fairly accurate idea of their situation, best described in one rude four letter word.

“Okay. Okay we can deal with this. I'm off to rally what's left of my squadron and give them Orks a nasty armoured punch to the cunt on that square here. If you can get the word out, there are safehouses here, here and here.” he said, stretched and then jogged past two smoking Ork boots.

“Orks have cunts?” one guardsman asked. Silence reigned in the trench as everyone briefly gave the dimwit a look. 

For some reason this made Jack giggle uncontrollably even five minutes later as he finally strolled into the improvised hangar that had served as home for the past days. Three Leman Russ main battle tanks stood silently in a row as their crews crawled over them like ants. The last few stowage bins were being secured, engines were given their final inspection and mounted weapons tested their range of movement.

“Sarge! We're ready to move sir, what took you so long? We compromised?” a beefy dwarf of a man asked. Jonas Lubbers, Jack's loader, and close friend from their initial recruitment.

“Not compromised, got diverted by a Nob. I made some friends, apparently there's guard here already.” Jack explained.

“What? Then what about the warning?” Jonas said, brow furrowed.

“Too late, and Orks found the broadcasting station on top of that. Apparently the Endoran 3rd blundered right into the ambush already.” Jack outlined quickly as he hopped up and onto the turret. Jonas paused before he hauled himself up.

“Damn.”

“Indeed, still there's only one thing for it. Let's go blow shit up.”

+=+=+=+
The battery of Ork shoota boyz gleefully and ineffectually fired their guns along with their actually effective artillery pieces. What was once a wide open market had been filled by the ugly greenskins to the point of comedy with a variety of mortars, looted basilisks and rocket racks. Once the initial payload expended itself, the horde scrambled to reload, and a moment of relative silence fell over the square. Silence broken by a faint cheerful tune from a wide stairwell that led to the lower levels.

“QUIT THAT GORKIN NOISE!” the ork Nob overseeing this particular battery yelled, and ambled over to the edge of the square to see what the noise was all about. Only to be promptly shot in the face with a heavy bolter, liberally spraying the xeno around the landscape.

“No.” Jack replied.

The engine of the Caerbannog roared and treads clawed at the air as the tank clambered up over the rubble filled stairway. Sponson bolters swept the artillery park clean of xeno filth while the turret turned to and fro as if the metal behemoth looked for a target. It found one in the shape of the ammunition piles that fed this particular battery, and one high explosive shell later it went up in a stupidly massive explosion. Jack referenced his map as Caerbannog lumbered forward, followed by the shapes of You There and Dirty Hubert, commanded by Rosetta Steen and Ramon Ramirez respectively.

“Alright Rosetta, take up the left flank, double R get the right flank. We should have a decent view on the Endorans from here. Tell your sponson gunners to watch the entrances to the square, if the greenies decide to hit us we need to know instantly and we're slinging enough lead downrange anyway.” Jack ordered. The Orks had taken up the market square precisely because of the dominating sight lines this particular ridge provided over much of the lower quarters: A fact that Jack now wanted to use against them. The local human slave population had been key to get them here, their hidden tunnels the only way the tanks got were they were undetected. Now, Jack counted on the Orks simply not noticing that this particular battery of Big Gunz was not on their side. A lot more likely than at first glance one might think: From a distance, the squadron looked like just another patch of gunbarrels unleashing hell on the suburbs. On top of that, most attention would be on the Imperial Guard attack down below anyway.

“Okay gunner, HE, enemy infantry in the open.” Jack rattled off as he selected the first target for his gunner Frank. As Frank fiddled with his controls, Jonas sprang into action.

“Up!”

“Target identified.”

“Fire!” 

The entire tank rocked back on it's treads as the first HE shell splattered Ork around, showering some poor sods and their commisar with Ork bits. Jack chuckled briefly. He was about to select the next target when he noticed fliers come in. His radio crackled with static before Willem Maas, his radops, cut through whatever jammed most airwaves.

"Endoran Third, Endoran Third, this is Captain Idro Keris of the Harakoni Thirty-Third! Do you read me? What is your situation?"

"Okay the guns are yours Frankie." Jack ordered, and turned his full attention to the radio. "Maas pass me the mike."

"Harakoni Thirty-Third be advised there is friendly armour on the ridge at coordinates three three mike Oscar Lima fiver four fiver niner eight. Don't bomb us please kay over?" Jack said into the mike.

"What kind of armour? Who is this?"

"Sergeant De Vries, Nendardel 5th armoured. I have three Leman Russ standard patterns here, callsigns Toolbox one, toolbox two, toolbox three, over."

"Toolbox one two and three, affirmative. Shoot the red flares we drop, repeat red flares are a call for fire. Green is for friendly drop sites, over."

"Affirmative. Toolbox one out." Jack said and hung up.

"Okay Maas, keep trying to get in touch with the Endoran 3rd." the tank commander ordered and consulted his dataslate. His mind raced as he checked his map with what he could see going on around him and the sporadic reports over the radio. Most of the Endorans were locked in a vicious close quarters brawl in streets to tight to swing a cat, let alone blunder through with a Leman Russ. No, he needed a new angle...