Repelling Chaos

Once the Grey Knights had departed Dogbelly, and the reinforcements that Hawk had summoned were equipped and deployed in their start positions Hammerhand knew that before long Hawk would go on the offensive again. Inquisitor Hawk's organisational energy always stepped down a gear or two whenever the Grey Knights were around. Both Hawk and Hammerhand considered them too prissy, too fussy and too concerned with the style of the battle for Hawks taste. They were choosy about who they would fight alongside and which weapons could be deployed. Hawk being secretly allied to the Radical faction preferred to demonstrate his exquisite tactical skills and offensive armoury out of sight of anyone that might have links to the Puritan faction amongst the Inquisition. A showdown between factions was long overdue.

Hammerhand thought the Grey Knights were mainly boring as everything had to be done by the book. No personal tweaks here or there. Waiting for the offensive to start Hammerhand had time only for a few scans of the stolen neural shredder, deep within it the scans showed an anomalous power source the like of which Hammerhand had never seen. When he showed this to Hawk, his only comment was, "Excellent." Hawk clearly had some idea of what it was but he would not tell Hammerhand anything more.

"Get Caliban ready Hammerhand, priority number one," said Hawk. "The shredder can wait for the moment. Keep it safe."
Hammerhand smiled. Despite the real risks to life and sanity he truly enjoyed working on the electromechanically contained demonhost that Hawk like to call Caliban.

"Once Caliban is ready, what is my assignment for the battle, Inquisitor?", asked Hammerhand.
"You are assigned to the Ogryns. You will help Halfhead, the Bonehead organise his fighters on our left flank in support of the Leman Russ." "You are to suppress any enemy heavy weapons and hook to our center once the enemy's right flank folds."

At dawn Hammerhand crouched with the Ogryn beside the Leman Russ. Once the orbital bombardment of the Chaos positions stopped they moved forward beside the roar the the Russ's engine. Almost immediately the Russ came under autocannon fire from a tank hunter squad of Chaos hidden within a partially destroyed factory. The cadian crew panicked and returned fire with the hull mounted heay bolter rather than the battle cannon. Thumping Halfhead on the elbow to get his attention above the noise of the heavy weapons Hammerhand waved the Ogryns forward showing Halfhead that he wanted them to assault the entrenched autocannons. Hammerhand climbed the exposed side of the Russ and opened up on the enemy position with the turret pintle mounted heavy stubber to give the Ogryns covering fire as they rushed forward weaving and firing their ripper guns.