Chapter 8 : Twelve Hours
Fourteen people crowded into the warehouse command post — every squad leader, Korvak, Father Marcus, Vasquez, and Priscilla. The promethium burner threw their shadows huge and wavering against the maps on the walls. Nash stood in front of the largest map, stylus in hand, the system painting tactical overlays that only he could see.
"Here's what we know." He tapped the map. "Ork warband, four hundred strong, approaching from the north. They're organized — vehicles, a Nob leading, coordinated advance. That means they're not going to hit us randomly. They'll probe, find weakness, and push."
"You said two hundred," Sergeant Kael said. Older man, gray in his beard, suspicious eyes. "Scout said two hundred."
"The scout counted what he saw. The vehicles suggest a supply train, which means more boyz behind the advance element. I'm estimating four hundred. Plan for that number and be grateful if I'm wrong."
Kael's jaw tightened, but he didn't argue.
"Defensive layout." Nash drew as he spoke, the system guiding his hand. "Three kill zones — north, northwest, northeast. We funnel them." Lines converged on the map, channeling hypothetical Ork charges into overlapping fields of fire. "Angled barricades here, here, and here. They push through the gap, they walk into concentrated las-fire from two positions simultaneously."
[IMPERIAL FOUNDATION PROTOCOL — BASIC FORTIFICATION TEMPLATE APPLIED]
[KILL ZONE EFFICIENCY: ESTIMATED 340% IMPROVEMENT OVER CURRENT LAYOUT]
"Fallback positions." He marked three points deeper in the perimeter. "If a section breaks, defending squads pull to these rally points. Controlled retreat, not rout. Corso, you run the fallbacks — you know your people."
Corso nodded. "Ammunition?"
"Three hundred forty packs. That's four hours of sustained fire if every shooter fires continuously, which they won't. I want controlled bursts — three-round volleys, called shots, conserve packs. Vasquez, you train the shooters. Any PDF veteran who's drilled volley fire, pair them with civilians. We have ten hours."
Vasquez leaned against the wall, bad leg extended. His face carried the flat calm Nash had come to recognize as his combat setting.
"I'll need the good shooters identified."
"Priscilla has the skills roster. Cross-reference anyone with military or hunting background."
Priscilla pulled a sheaf of notes from her pocket — hand-compiled, organized by sector and skill type. The administrator had worked through the night. Dark circles under her eyes, but her hands were steady.
"Forty-two with prior military service," she said. "Eleven more with hunting or marksmanship background. Twenty-three with construction skills we haven't used yet."
"Construction gets wall duty." Nash pointed at the western section — the weak point he'd identified for Corso the day before. "Reinforce the gap with whatever we can stack. Cargo containers, rubble, wrecked vehicles. It doesn't need to be pretty. It needs to be heavy."
"Korvak," Nash continued, turning to the tech-priest. Korvak stood apart from the group, augmetic arm twitching, organic eye fixed on Nash with the unblinking intensity of someone recording evidence. "The gun emplacements on the north wall — are they functional?"
"Two of three. The third requires a power coupling replacement that—"
"Can you get two working at full capacity in ten hours?"
A mechanical pause. "Yes."
"Do it."
Father Marcus stood near the door, silent until now. The priest's hands rested on his brass aquila, his face calm in a way that had nothing to do with ignorance and everything to do with certainty.
"And the people who can't fight?" Marcus asked. "The children, the wounded, the elderly?"
"South-side bunker complex. Sealed entrance, one exit, defensible chokepoint. You're in charge of them, Father. If the line breaks, you get them out through the drainage tunnels."
"The tunnels you came through."
"The same ones."
Marcus held Nash's gaze for a moment. "The Emperor protects those who protect themselves," he said. Not a prayer — a statement of operational agreement.
The perimeter transformed.
Nash spent the remaining hours walking the line, checking each position, adjusting angles of fire based on real-time system calculations that he disguised as hands-on inspection. The system kept a running count in his peripheral vision — barriers placed, firing positions optimized, ammunition distributed.
At Position Three, a young PDF private was stacking sandbags in a configuration that would collapse under the first impact. Nash knelt beside him and rearranged the base layer, showing the interlocking pattern — the same one he'd taught Lida with her power pack bricks.
"Like building blocks," the private said, understanding.
"Exactly like that."
At Position Seven, the heavy stubber emplacement had a clear firing arc but no protection for the gunner. Nash had two workers weld a sheet of vehicle hull plating into a shield. Crude, ugly, and it would save a life.
At Position Ten, a civilian woman — former hive transit worker — gripped a lasgun like it might bite her. Her hands shook. Nash stopped, adjusted her stance, showed her how to brace the stock into her shoulder.
"Aim for center mass," he said. "Don't try for headshots. They're bigger targets than you think."
"I've never fired one of these."
"You have ten hours to practice. Vasquez's drill starts in twenty minutes."
She nodded. The shaking didn't stop, but her grip tightened.
Nash kept walking. Position by position. Face by face. The system tagged each defender — combat capability, morale score, skill assessment — but Nash went beyond the data. He asked about injuries. About families in the bunker. About whether they'd eaten.
Vasquez fell into step beside him between Positions Twelve and One. The corporal's limp had eased — Venn had cleaned and re-dressed the leg wound, proper bandaging now replacing the improvised tourniquet.
"You're doing rounds," Vasquez said.
"I'm checking positions."
"You're doing rounds, sir. Officers visit the line before battle. It matters."
Nash glanced at him. "I'm not an officer, Corporal."
"No. You're something else." Vasquez's tone carried no judgment. Just observation. "The men respond to it. Whatever it is."
"What it is, is a dead project manager from Earth pretending confidence he doesn't have while an alien AI feeds him tactical overlays. That's probably not what the troops need to hear."
By hour eight, the perimeter had changed. Not unrecognizable — the same scrap walls, the same desperate geography — but purposeful now. Kill zones channeled approaches. Firing positions had cover and overlapping arcs. The western gap was filled with three stacked cargo containers and a wrecked Taurox transport.
Father Marcus had organized the non-combatants. Thirty-one children, forty-two wounded and elderly, eighty-three civilians deemed unfit for the fighting line — all sheltered in the south-side bunker complex. Marcus stood at the entrance like a pillar, his brass aquila catching light from the glow-lumens, his presence doing more for morale than any barricade.
Priscilla ran the supply line — ammunition distribution, water rationing, medical stations positioned for rapid casualty treatment. She'd requisitioned three stretcher teams and staged them behind the secondary positions. Nash hadn't asked for that. She'd anticipated it.
"She's good at this. Better than she thinks."
Hour eleven.
Nash stood on the north wall — a platform of stacked containers overlooking the approach — with Corso beside him. The promethium burner had been extinguished. No lights on the perimeter. Five hundred people held their breath in the dark.
"Garrett." Corso's voice was quiet. The stims had worn off an hour ago; she was running on adrenaline and will. "If this doesn't work—"
"It'll work."
"If it doesn't."
"Then we fall back, regroup, and figure out the next thing. That's all we can do."
She was silent for a moment. "You've done this before."
"No. But I've planned for it."
The horizon lightened. Not dawn — it was hours from dawn. Fires. Dozens of them, a constellation of orange points moving across the ruined cityscape to the north. Engine noise — deep, arrhythmic, the mechanical coughing of Ork vehicles held together by willpower and scrap.
Then the howling.
It started low — a bass vibration Nash's chest more than his ears — and built, layered, hundreds of throats adding their voices to a war-cry that predated civilization. Primal. Joyful. The sound of something that lived for violence and was about to get everything it wanted.
The fires resolved into shapes. Silhouettes against the burning skyline, four hundred strong, with crude vehicles churning through rubble. At the front, larger than the rest, a figure that made the boyz around it look small.
[THREAT CLASSIFICATION: ORK NOB — HEAVILY ARMED, MELEE SPECIALIZATION]
[ESTIMATED HOSTILES: 420 — REVISED FROM PREVIOUS ESTIMATE]
[INCLUDES: 6 TRUKKS, 1 WARBUGGY, HEAVY WEAPONS ELEMENTS]
[TIME TO CONTACT: 18 MINUTES]
"Four hundred and twenty. Not four hundred. I based my estimates on generic Ork warband compositions from codex entries. These Orks don't read codexes."
The meta-knowledge had limits. Nash absorbed that lesson standing on a wall of scrap metal, watching death walk toward him on four hundred pairs of feet.
"All positions," Corso said into the vox. Her voice didn't shake. "Stand ready."
The system flooded Nash's vision with threat markers — each Ork tagged, tracked, assigned a priority value. The data came faster than he could process, a torrent of tactical information that made his temples throb.
He pushed it back. Narrowed the feed. Front line positions only. Ammunition status. Casualty estimate.
The howling grew louder. The ground vibrated.
Nash gripped the barricade edge, knuckles white, and watched the first wave resolve out of the darkness — a tide of green muscle and rusted metal, four hundred strong, pouring toward his walls like water toward a cracked dam.
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