V2 Chapter 88: The End of the Sveren Campaign
In the eight days that followed the night of the counter-attack, the area stretching from the Ashbell line to Nev City across several dozen kilometres became something close to a killing ground.
The Blood Pact army had been cut into segments. The forward command post had been destroyed, the artillery positions wrecked, the armoured reserve broken apart by the Eisenmark armoured battalion, and the vox relay nodes demolished by the 112th assault companies. The surviving Blood Pact soldiers still numbered in the tens of thousands, but they could no longer function as an army.
In the first two days, they had tried to consolidate and break out.
Some officers raised battered battle standards and attempted to draw nearby units back into formation. Groups of Blood Pact soldiers used abandoned communication trenches and the cover of bodies to launch several fierce counter-pushes.
But every time they began to assemble in any number, the red markers on the tactical map shifted into ordered clusters. Duvette saw it the moment it happened.
What followed was the Krieg heavy artillery, the Eisenmark armoured battalion, and the Death Korps clearance teams.
By the eighth day, the battle had no remaining uncertainty.
The encirclement was complete. The Krieg pressed inward from the trench line direction. The Nev City garrison and the 112th pushed outward from the city gate. Subsequent Imperial forces arriving from the rear took over the outer perimeter seal.
The Blood Pact still trapped inside had fragmented into isolated pockets. Some elements, their vox links cut and their Chaos fervour uncontrolled, had begun firing on each other in the confusion.
Under [Eye of Judgement], no formed enemy unit could stay hidden.
They could shelter in trenches, rubble, the outer city's underground passages, and the bodies of the dead. But the Chaos taint on them burned in the dark like a candle flame. The red markers lit them up wherever they went, and death followed those markers. The encirclement pocket had become a methodical slaughter.
Duvette stood before a corpse pit.
Several Krieg soldiers in heavy promethium flamer rigs were igniting the freshly filled trench in front of them. Thousands of Blood Pact bodies had been packed into it. Many of the shattered shell-armour pieces had not been fully stripped, and the combined smell of scorched flesh and burning plastics rolled outward on the heat.
"Next batch."
The Krieg officer beside the pit gave the order.
Corpse-carrier vehicles arrived in sequence from the distance, tipping load after load of Blood Pact dead into the adjacent freshly dug trench. Krieg combat engineers operated dozer vehicles to press the bodies flat, then covered them with promethium and sterilising compounds. Several servo-skulls dragged incense censers along the pit edge, broadcasting Ministorum prayers in a low mechanical murmur.
This was not the first pit. It would not be the last.
Between the trench line and Nev City's outer city, the Krieg engineers had already opened more than a dozen burning trenches. The Blood Pact dead were too numerous, and the Chaos contamination ran too deep. Leaving that much on the battlefield for any length of time was not an option. Duvette inhaled the acrid burning smell without particular reaction.
Battlefield clearance was necessary work.
He had no intention of finishing a battle against Khorne's devotees only to invite Nurgle's plagues with piled rotting bodies and contaminated ground. The Imperium could endure a great deal, but leaving mass Chaos-tainted dead in a recently contested operational zone was an efficient way to prepare the ground for the next disaster.
He looked down at the strategic map.
Green markers had surrounded and divided the red. The large enemy formations had gone dark; only scattered remnants still flickered. The sound of guns continued from the distance, but it was no longer the sound of two forces contesting the initiative. It was clearance work.
Subsequent Imperial forces were arriving and assuming the outer positions.
The directions under Bleddin's command had returned to offensive operations.
With the Blood Pact's mobile main force destroyed, the pressure that had been applied to other front lines dropped sharply.
Nadzybar's counter-offensive plan for Sveren had failed.
The surviving Blood Pact still held several landing zones, underground strongpoints, and rubble positions, but they had lost the capacity to resume offensive action. Those positions would be eliminated one by one. It was a matter of time.
The orbital picture was also shifting toward the Imperium.
With the ground-based anti-aircraft positions and fire-direction nodes destroyed, the Imperial fleet had finally been able to resume landing craft and supply drops in sections of the near-orbital approach. As follow-on reinforcements arrived, the Chaos fleet elements Nadzybar had left in Sveren's orbit began to give ground under pressure.
Sveren would be finished within a month at the outside.
"I genuinely did not expect this."
A slightly hoarse voice reached him from the side.
Duvette did not turn around.
Major General Petrov walked up, still pale. Bandages showed beneath his coat, which he had draped over his shoulders rather than properly putting on. His colour was better than it had been, but he still looked like a man who might go down at any moment.
"Though I suppose from your point of view," Petrov said, coughing twice, "it was exactly what you expected."
"How are the wounds?"
Duvette glanced at him, then put his attention back on the strategic map.
Petrov waved a hand.
"Minor."
He looked briefly at the burning corpse pit in the distance, then at the Krieg formations continuing to press inward.
"When I first saw you at Formal Prime I knew you were nothing but trouble," Petrov said. "I did not expect that trouble would save my life."
Duvette allowed himself a short laugh.
"There is still time to say thank you."
Petrov's jaw moved slightly, and for a moment he found nothing to say.
After a pause, he spoke again. "I imagine the expedition's command staff have heard your name rather a lot by now."
"I'm used to it."
Duvette's tone was easy.
Petrov was quiet for a moment, then said: "I expect you will be promoted."
"I am ready for it."
Duvette said it without hesitation.
Petrov looked at him with an expression suggesting he had considered saying something and decided against it. In the end he produced a slow exhale.
"You are genuinely not modest at all."
"Modesty does not punch through a battle line."
Duvette said it and raised his hand to indicate several positions on the strategic map.
"Holst will continue pressing from this direction. Dylan handles the 112th's follow-on movements. My adjutant Evan will coordinate with you to take over the Nev City sector. Don't rush to consume the remaining pockets. Cut them clean first, then eliminate them piece by piece."
Petrov nodded.
"Understood."
At that moment, Evan's voice came through the vox channel.
"Commissar. Marshal Slaydo is requesting your presence aboard the flagship. The shuttle is standing by."
Duvette looked up toward the sky in the distance.
"Understood. I am on my way."
He closed the channel and turned back to Petrov one last time.
"That leaves the Nev City direction with you. There should not be any significant complications. Follow the plan and grind them down."
Petrov waved a hand.
"Go. I have it."
Duvette gave a nod and turned to leave.
Petrov was quiet for a moment, then spoke.
"Duvette."
Duvette stopped.
Petrov looked at him. His voice dropped.
"Thank you. This time."
Duvette did not answer immediately.
He simply allowed himself a short laugh.
Then he turned and walked toward the shuttle waiting in the distance. Behind him, the promethium flames were still burning in the corpse pits, and the sound of guns inside the encirclement had not stopped.
But the outcome of Sveren was no longer in question.
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