A slightly smaller Mess

"I have been to the homes of the traitor legions, where damned souls gather and reality itself buckles and decays. I have been to the dead worlds of the eldar, overrun with the ghosts of their race, and the daemons that seek to devour them. I have walked the ashen ground of Istvaan, Prospero, Olympia and Monarchia. I have DIED Laurence. None of this can scare me anymore. Not you. Not them. I am going fucking nowhere."

He stops in the doorway. "Then stay and die. I only hope that, for his own sake, Tyren does not stand by you until the end." He grunts, remembering something, and whistles through his teeth.

"So now you're willing to cut and run? You weren't when the iron warriors came, but NOW standing and fighting is the wrong choice?!"

"I'm not running. You're getting to safety. I'm punching the hole."

"Laurence what the hell is wrong with you? Since when were you some martyr?"

"I'm not going to die, damnit." He spits with a snarl.

The door at the back of the room cracks open, and a familar daemonic face pokes its head around the corner, and wrinkles its nose at the stench of ichor, but keeps her mouth shut hearing the argument.

Lyanna: you are. We can't win, you know that.

"We can, and we fucking well will." he turns back around, and beckons sidonai over. "Now i am going to cut a hole in that line, far from the titan, and the strongpoint. You're all going to mount up in the chimeras, and roll through, then i'll keep them off while you make good. Anyone who argues, i'll kill myself. Am. I. Clear?"

"This plan in no way accounts for the fact the chimeras will be in the open and the enemy has total air superiority..."

"Staying here means you all die. This gives us a chance."

"And getting strafed by gunships in the open is a chance is it?"

"I'll deal with it."

"How?!"

"I destroyed voidships, you think gunships are beyond me?"

"I think they'll realise, wait till you've pulled back, and hit us in the open a while after we've broken through the line and you aren't there to help."

"That gives us an opening."

"No, it just means anyone in the chimeras still dies before they get there."

"AGH!" he punches the wall, but unlike last time, the stone cracks, not his bones. "THEN WHAT DO WE DO? WE CAN'T STAY, WE CAN'T GO!"

"Do you get it yet?! We could never fucking win this!!"

Laurence grinds his teeth, and punches the wall again, dust and chips of stone flying. "I'm going to slaughter every fucking one of them, All of them..." He turns towards the stairs.

"You'll die trying laurence. You know that."

"What other choice is left."

"Maybe if we last long enough, someone shows up. Or maybe we find a way to get out. Maybe."

The officer reaches forward and grasps the mans hand tightly before giving it a firm shake.
“Have anti air batteries ready, we’ve had drakes orbiting our ship for the past hour”
Behind the pair a young vox officer kneels down and begins talking into his headset, the mans voice a quiet murmur compared to the booming voice of his superior.

"We can't stay here. They know where we are. They'll just dig a hole with lance fire. I can't be in the same place."

He shakes in return. "That, i can do. Viktor Strauss, Colonel, or so i'm told."

Lyanna: if they wanted to do that, they would have already. They want to try this conventionally. We're that fucked, they're using us as live fire training for fucks sake.

"I refuse to die, lying down, waiting for someone to save us."

"You die either way, what difference does it make?"

"How many i take with me."

"They'll always have more laurence."!

"I'll butcher so many they'll remember... Then i'll go for khorne's throat."

"This is the iron warriors, laurence. There's always more. They won't care. They'll barely register it."

"We'll fucking see..." He snorts. "There are nuclear weapons... The codes are downstairs, drawer is labelled three D. Set them off when you feel the need."

Lyanna glances around, judging the mood of the room and if she's the only one who thinks laurence is making a mistake

“Arteras Cybutus, platoon commander. How many men do you have under your command?”

Tyren: "I sought death on the field many times... Now is not yours, Laurence. Do not be rash."

Viktor: "Now you're asking... It's a militia, so, can't put a number on it."

Lyanna: I have died laurence. It's not pleasant.

Laurence: "I imagine the pantheon will squabble over my soul. It should at least prove... interesting."

Arteras: “I see, we number approximately 1000 men with support from a Malcador armoured company, and a half strength Company consisting of Leman Russ Battle Tanks.”

"I'm not goddamn joking"

Viktor: "Thats good. We've precious little real armour. Mining vehicles will do the trick to a point, but they wont stand to a real tank."

Laurence: "I don't imagine death to be enjoyable. But noone is coming, Lyanna." He waves dismissively, as if to bat down her arguments. An interesting gesture made by a 9 foot ursine beast. "Even if charles and Tyren's brothers were here now, and not in weeks. It would make no difference."

Lyanna: They could get us out.

Arteras: “Unfortunately the enemy has void and air superiority. Tell me, how sturdy are your tunnels? And how deep do they go?”

Viktor laughs heartily. "Oh they go deep enough. And we've not had a collapse in fifty years." There's an obvious edge of pride in his voice.

Laurence: "Getting out is good. Breaking the fleet is better."

"And one of those things will be actually possible"

Laurence: "With that Gloriana in orbit, A company of astartes, and charles' deathwatch besides... We might be able to do more than you think."

"If we only count astartes, they'd still outgun us, and then outman us four to one. And that's not coutning the auxilia. Or the chaff."

Arteras allows a slight grin to creep up his lips and nods gently “They may be put to the test soon. If we can’t rendezvous with other native forces we’ll be forced to prepare and garrison your tunnels.”

Many kilometres away their dropship is being loaded up, tanks are docked inside, the men dismantle their fortifications. Slowly but surely every last brick and bag will be swept back into the craft so it can make the short hop to the Promethium rig.

Laurence: "With Charles here, as well as me, and his little arm ornament, chaff will not be an issue. Neither the auxillia, most likely." Laurence's spirits appear to be raising somewhat, likely as another plan forms in his mind.

Viktor: "That's what we've been put to. Turning the tunnels into a bloody labyrinth."

Lyanna: I beg your pardon?

Arteras: “My men will line the tunnels with pillboxes and mines, all you need to do get us a hololith with the tunnel layout. What power supply do you use here? Fusion reactors? Plasma?”
The officer speaks as if such generators are a common and easy to acquire technology, seemingly blind to the nature of life on a planet.