A slightly smaller Mess

"Pointlessly? I would say blowing up a command bunker would be rather fruitful."

"And the obvious imperial would get within a hundred meters of it without being shot....how?"

"That's a bridge to cross when i get to it."

"No it isn't. Youll just get killed within... thirty/forty seconds"

He rolls his eyes, and shakes his head. "Well, I'll think of something... In the meantime, do you have any whiskey? My ribs are figuratively killing me."

He gestures to a bottle on the table

He limps over, and pours a glass. "So... This little conspiracy of ours..."

He raises an eyebrow as he takes a swig

He takes a mouthful, and sighs. "Not the best... But yes, our... arrangement." He gestures between the two of them with his free hand. "You help me kill as many of these, purebloods of yours, as i can manage, we set it up such that, it doesn't come back to you... You get your petty revenge, and i get to kill heretics."

"Revenge? For what?" He chuckles

"General unpleasantness? You seem not to care for them a good deal."

"Aye, theyre assholes but I aint out for vengeance"

"Well, there goes my shot at martyrdom."

"So, here's the deal. You want to get back to your side of this war right?"

He raises an eyebrow mid sip. "Yes...?"

"I can sort that out. But I can't while I'm deployed. Meaning it'd have to wait till the campaign's done."

"So... i watch as my home is burned? No, i don't think so."

"Got a better plan?"

"Cover of darkness, is a thing which exists."

"And which way would you go exactly?"

"Up and over the moor, towards Auroram." (The other city)

"Problem with that. Wanna know who's lines are behind these ones?"

"Do tell, good sir."

"The iron warriors. The astartes. The lads who'd turn fifteen of you into a pile of twitching giblets without breaking a sweat."

"Thankyou for the information, i suppose i'll have to go out the front."

"And howdya plan on getting past the artillery trenches, the reserve trenches, the regular trenches, the bunker network, the barbed wire killzones, and then get through your own lines without being shot by twitchy night watchmen?"

"My plan, in its entirety, is to sneak past. It's rather elegant in its simplicity."

"How do you sneak past auto-turrets when the kill zones force you into their fields of fire?"

"Go around? The line is finite"

"Circle's a circle. City's surrounded."

"And the second line behind, is astartes all the way?"

"Yep"

"Surely you don't have enough astartes for that."

"I aint the numbers guy lad, but there's a lot of em"

"Well regardless, I shan't be staying a prisoner while my homeland falls to traitors."

"You aren't my prisoner lad. Albeit, any other fucker in this vast network of trenches'd shoot you on sight, so might not be an idea to go paradin about. And as fer it fallin, its fallin no matter what ye do lad. Did the god machine not get that into your heads behind those parapets? Cause there's more where that came from."

"Would you sit and watch your home fall into our hands, without putting up a fight for her?" He drains the last of the glass, placing it back on the table.

"Would ya rather die here, or fight for your imperium somewhere you can actually win?"

"How exactly would i get off the planet? I'm afraid i left my wallet in my other trousers."

"I can sort that out once we're in orbit. But that aint happenin till the battle's done here."

"Once we're in orbit? Pardon me for a moment... You want to get me onto an Iron warrior ship?"

"You think the likes of me share the same ships as the astartes?" he laughs

He waves away the comment "Semantics, the point is, how are you going to get me off the ship again?"

"I can get you a shuttle, enough fuel to get you to the next imperial sector, that sorta thing."

"But... Why would you?" He points his finger at him "You'd be shot for this."

he shrugs
"Mainly cause I wanna help at least one of you poor bastards. Not exactly in a position to do more than that eh? Besides. Fer now I say get some rest. You look like you're barely standing. We can talk more when you're recharged eh?"

"Yes... That's reasonable, i suppose." True enough, he does look rather pale in the face.

He gestures to one of the beds. He notes there are a total of seven in the dugout.

The guy pretty much just collapses into it the moment he's limped over. Out like a light

the other man sighs and lights up a cigar. Taking a puff, he stands up and walks out of the dugout, and climbs the parapet. He knows what's about to happen. The fireworks are about to start...

All along the line, the defenders suddenly note the flashes of artillery firing in the distance, in very large numbers, stretching along the entirety of the enemy's lines. Moments later, the shells land amongst them. And keep landing.

The men of the PDF are more than used to artillery by this point, with dugouts deep and expansive enough to shelter the mainstay of the defence, while the brave men in the above ground bunkers keep a vigilant watch.

Laurence sits, comfortably on his heels, upon a low rising hill behind the line, watching the shells fall.