A tale of the 13th Necromunda, during the uprising on Virellia Secundus.
“You ever hear the story of Liberty’s Hammer?”
The old veteran didn’t wait for a reply. He just leaned back, boots on the barrel, smoke curling from the stub of his lho-stick like the memory itself was burning in real-time.
“Virellia Secundus. Hell of a place—smelled like burnt promethium and broken promises. The Combine had its boot on the people’s neck so long they forgot what standing upright felt like. And then… the 13th showed up. Just rolled in like thunder with patched armor and bigger guns than manners.”
He chuckled. “They say the first shot came from a rust-bucket named Old Smokey. They say the last one came from the skies—courtesy of a madman called "Duck". Truth is, nobody really remembers how it all went down. But they remember what it meant.”
He tapped the side of a dented tin canteen—etched with a crude rat skull.
“It meant hope had teeth. It meant tanks didn’t care about tyrants. And it meant that just once, in a city choked by its own chains, the people won. You want the real version?”
He winked.
“Too bad. All we got is the legend. And it goes like this…”
The city of Pyrehold was burning.
Not from riots or war—though those would come—but from the smog towers of the Virellian Combine, an Imperial sub-faction that had grown too greedy, too cruel, and too comfortable with Enforcer batons and local repression. Taxes were extracted in blood. Water was rationed to loyalists. Gangs were either broken or absorbed into the Combine’s private regiments.
And then came the broadcast.
A coded vox transmission cut through the jamming field at midnight local time, crackling through forgotten channels and pirate relays:
“To the people of Pyrehold, This is Lord-Captain Alaric Danver. Stay hidden. Stay strong.
We bring liberty—and tanks. The 13th has landed."
The Combine didn’t take it seriously. They would soon learn.
The Resistance Ignites
The uprising began in the smog-wreathed underhabs. Locals with jury-rigged stubbers and stolen laslocks emerged from sump corridors and trash tunnels to hit patrols and checkpoints. Gangs once sworn to silence now wore the Rat Catcher badge over old loyalties.
Atop the high spine bridge leading into Pyrehold proper, “Old Smokey” rolled out of a cargo tram, smoke belching, lascannon glowing. With a thunderous BOOM, it vaporized a Combine checkpoint, then reversed into an alley where its sponsons raked a pursuing gun-skiff into molten ruin.
Meanwhile, “Ma Bell” fired her first salvo not at the enemy—but at their communications hub. The vox-spire shattered under precision rocket fire, collapsing in a twist of plasteel and flame. One of her gunners—a wiry ex-vox tech named Jinx—shouted, “That’s for charging us by the syllable, you frakkers!”
The locals called it "The Second Declaration."
“Freedom Ain’t Free, But It Has a Hellhammer”
The Combine counterattack came swiftly—APCs, power-armored enforcers, and even a corrupted Knight-class walker bribed into service.
The 13th responded with full fury.
“Maus”, the superheavy tank, emerged from the shadows of Sector 9 with all guns blazing. It played a game of cat-and-mouse with the enemy Knight across the ruined Promethium District. When the Walker turned to fire on retreating rebels, Maus executed a perfect pincer movement from a cratered parking tower. Its main cannon fired point-blank into the Knight’s side, punching through like a giant’s fist through wet paper.
The walker exploded into a pyrotechnic bloom visible for miles. People cheered. Then ducked. Then kept fighting.
The Unseen and The Unsung
While the tanks and transports made war loud and visible, Ghost Alley lived up to their name. One shot, one kill—three bodies never seen. During a critical exchange on the roof of the Capitolum Archive, a Ghost Alley sniper set up a perfect overwatch. So perfect, in fact, that he noticed another figure—a silent black-armored Vindicare Assassin—in a mirror position.
They locked eyes. The assassin gave a curt nod.
Good thing the Unseen wore gas masks. Else the assassin would have seen the sniper’s terrified grin.
And the Sky Cried Freedom
At the apex of the battle, the 13th called in their new friends.
“Duck” Dodgers—Imperial Navy Fleet Officer voxed down from high orbit.
“Targets confirmed.
Packages away.
Happy Emancipation Day, dirt-side.”
Orbital strike lances rained from above, obliterating Combine armor, HQ, and retreat corridors in radiant pulses of light.
Then came the final broadcast:
“To the people of Virellia Secundus:
The yoke is broken.
The tanks roll for you now.
We are the 13th Necromunda.
Rat Catchers.
And we bring the boom.”
Epilogue
The 13th didn’t stay to rule. That wasn’t their way.
They left the planet’s fate in the hands of the locals, gifting weapons, training, and one rebuilt Leman Russ affectionately called “Betsy.”
She bore a hastily painted motto on her side panel in bright red ink:
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| “Don’t Tread on Me.” |
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