Rage and anger have always been in humans. They always are and will be, because they are part of the emotions and feelings, thanks to which humanity as a species was able not only to leave the cradle, but also to steadfastly endure an incredible number of troubles, both from within and from without.
In turn, rage and anger could not accumulate for a long time, there had to be something where these feelings could be thrown out. And for a soldier of Krieg, driven into a cycle of cruel training, and then into a cycle of bloody battles, only an enemy could become a truly effective method. And although the ability to manifest these emotions and feelings was killed in order to destroy other qualities, anger and fury were directed both by prayers and by the charter.
And when it came down to it, the Death Corps guard who had lost all fear of death turned into not just a cold and precise instrument, but also a clot of incredible zeal, which could only be achieved through the simultaneous use of total indoctrination and religiosity. And all this descended on me like a hailstorm in broad daylight.
Each of us was a Krieg project, each of us was given thousands and millions of prerequisites that had to play their role at this moment. And that is why even with torn legs the cadets crawled and screamed terrifyingly, even breathing in radiation dust through a melted gas mask, they did not give up trying to carry out the order and it seemed that even death was losing here, because nothing could break those who had been broken hundreds of times before and created a frightening perfection from the fragments.
- RE… COUNTER… CAPTURE!!! - a broken voice came from the vox-pack lying next to the sergeant's body.
Tikhiy was firing precisely, working from behind the corner of the dugout to which he had retreated. He was finishing off those I had immobilized, and at the same time, having reached the emergency supplies and opened the box of grenades, Krivoruky was throwing shrapnel death. He didn't even look out of the trench and simply connected the fuse and explosives, pulled the pin and sent the grenades towards the enemy.
Our defense wavered, lost its integrity, but the assault group also came to an end, giving us a moment to catch our breath. Only a moment, because a new detachment was already rushing towards us, not giving us the opportunity to regroup or lick our wounds. An endless war of attrition, that's how Krieg fought, sparing neither equipment nor infantry.
The lasgun battery was exhausted after the third shot at the fallen enemy, who had not lost the will to kill me. There were so many corpses around... so many had died for these pitiful crumbs of territory. And no matter the outcome, they would still belong to Krieg and the Imperium, which made it even more maddening. But the chorus of steel and fire roared above my head again.
"Makhariy" was getting closer and it seemed nothing could stop it. Through the roar of its engine I could already hear the rumble of the boots of the new assault squad. But even though the sergeant had died, he had managed to transmit the last vital information. The enemy was at point-blank range, it was impossible to hold the position, which meant that there was only one way out of this situation worthy of a real soldier and especially a future guardsman.
The whistle of dozens of shells tried to destroy the fighting spirit of the enemies going on the offensive. And if we had not been fighting against the same as us, then maybe the offensive would have died down at that moment. But even when the shells tore apart the tank tracks, and then began to tear apart the armor like hail, when a direct hit penetrated the commander's cupola and tore apart the crew... then through the explosions, jumping over the corpses of their comrades, everyone else continued to go into battle in waves.
With all this, the offensive was not ideal. Some broke down at that moment, others behaved very strangely, at that time I still did not understand what exactly the problem was, I wrote it off to the fact that the command simply pitted the unworthy against each other in order to reduce their numbers and give the survivors invaluable experience through direct combat, which would make them worthy of the right to be called a guardsman. Yes, such a brutal battle went beyond many limits, but sometimes it was necessary to resort to such methods. However, even the command was surprised by such an order and only the top leadership knew or so far guessed about the real reasons for what happened.
One way or another, I had no time to think about it, because the enemy flew right into my trench. He flew in so that he wouldn't be in the open area where our artillery was pounding for a second longer. He immediately regrouped, tried to point his gun at me, but it was too late.
I instantly made a dash towards him, throwing away the lasgun, which I had not managed to attach the bayonet to due to the unexpected attack and after working on the mortar. An unfortunate oversight, however, Krieg trained his guardsmen in extremely cruel and, in some opinion, incredibly bloodthirsty close combat tactics. Because of this, the enemies did not even try to take prisoners, because left without a lasgun, without grenades and without a bayonet knife, the Kriegman still rushed at the enemy, and often defeated those who wielded a fixed bayonet.
With a practiced reflex, I simply grabbed the barrel of the lasgun and pulled it aside, then looked straight into the blackened glass of the gas mask. And then my infantry shovel, sharpened on the chopping side, sank into the flesh between the shoulder and the neck with a nasty slap. Hot blood gushed out, I began to knock the enemy down, and then struck again, this time right into the neck, turning it into a mess.
I had already killed people and so far I didn't see anything fundamentally difficult in it. However, one way or another, I gained extremely useful experience during the training process. Not only did I learn to kill enemies with all the weapons available to a guardsman, but I also understood the limits of my own body better and better. Not taking into account those damned gifts that could be meanly taken away at any moment and... as a result, Tzeentch did it.
Somewhere around that moment, the thought occurred to me as I picked up the lasgun of a fallen enemy and ran to the dugout where Quiet and Crooked-Handed were holding the line, firing occasionally. Tzeentch could take my immortality too. Although it was hard to believe, because if he really wanted to turn my life into hell, then endless reincarnations would do it best.
The price of the breakthrough was heavy for the enemy, because no one gave him time to prepare either. At the same time, our first units that stood in his way forced him to pay an incredibly huge price for the offensive. The remaining forces were already regrouping, simultaneously preventing us from breaking through to the strategic goal. The enemy was pushing with three powerful fists, two of which were taking us in pincers, and another one was going around us in a wide arc to the north.
And if the first assault group was completely destroyed, the second one was drowned out by our resistance, and the third one fell under artillery fire, then the fighters of the fourth wave were already advancing along the entire length of the new front. We did not have enough artillery to turn them into mincemeat before they arrived. Frankly, none of the armies is capable of such a thing. For a massive shelling, artillery is usually brought to the section of the front where it is planned to throw a regiment to break through. And there is no industry that could provide soldiers with such a number of guns to conduct such a massive shelling along the entire width of the front.
Probably right now the command was already determining more important areas and soon we would lose fire support. But one way or another, no one was thinking about running away. And without further ado, Krivoruky was already crawling towards the corpses in order to profit from the grenades that perhaps some of the fighters had not had time to use. In addition, he had managed to discharge all his batteries and the need for them was also high. After all, the task of any Kriegman is not just to die in His name, but to do it with dignity, doing everything possible and impossible to crush the enemy.
And this battle was incredibly fierce, so much so that it eclipsed many other battles across the galaxy. In a bloody war, we destroyed each other, finding ourselves on opposite sides of the trench, and the light of our souls shone equally brightly. Each of us fought for that Holy Truth, the value of which was higher than life. And therefore the flames of war burned incredibly strongly, because each of us believed that he was right.
Panic began to waft in the back of the soul, but it was stifled in its infancy by the tightly fitting gas mask. In a rush to fulfill the order, we tried to find redemption, so the guns will not fall silent, more and more Prometheus will be burned, and no matter how many died today, even more will die later, to shed the blood of those whom His finger points at.
As if in a terrible nightmare, even aviation was already circling above us. By some miracle we managed to hold out, although there was no miracle as such. The noble cadets, the horsemen of death, cut the enemy's second assault fist with their counteroffensive and sowed confusion in the enemy's ranks, weakening them and giving our tank companies the opportunity for a crushing attack. After all this, the reinforcements that had arrived were thrown into the battle, regrouping and unloading from trucks.
A full-scale counteroffensive began, where it quickly became clear that our corps was suddenly... not the worst. And the further we advanced, the more confusion tried to take over our minds. We saw... saw cadets who resembled the living dead. They looked at us and did not even try to kill, as if they had resigned themselves to their fate or lost all will. Others were so furious that they ran at us with infantry shovels, although in their pouches they later found both lasgun batteries and grenades.
Something was clearly wrong. And although I was ready to close my eyes to a lot of things, and I had no desire to ask questions, because I was only interested in knowledge that could make me an impeccable soldier, capable of surviving in hell itself, but this was too much. I did not like it, and the suspiciousness instilled by communication with Tzeentch forced me to look for answers and make assumptions on the level of "Krieg fell into heresy and decided to destroy himself, again."
Or, of course, they decided to "write us off" as defective, but to be fair, was our level so bad that we were thrown away like garbage? The losses in this battle will be incredibly high, perhaps less than a third of us will remain. Is it worth it? And how much equipment has already been lost?
No, I refused to believe that it was all just to write off the extras. There were ways to do it differently, for example, by not giving the worst anti-tank weapons. Then the important personnel would have received that invaluable experience without suffering irreparable losses. Something was wrong and the more questions I started asking, the stronger the desire to get to the truth began to burn in me.
"I'm a lousy Kriegman," I exhaled on the last dash and dove into a shell crater.
It was about seven meters deep and probably about twenty meters wide. Quite huge and impenetrable. After me, Krivoruky and Tikhy dived in, as well as another platoon of reinforcements that had arrived. We went on the offensive, not giving the enemy time to come to their senses, regroup, or have a chance to survive. The war was moving into a phase of total destruction, some kind of extermination, but no one gave the order to stop, just as the enemy was in no hurry to surrender.
- They've dug in! They've managed to bury the tanks! - shouted the platoon commander, under whose command we had also joined. - Bundles of grenades have been prepared⁈
"Yes sir!" the five fighters answered in unison, demonstrating a formidable weapon capable of penetrating even a tank's armor, if only to get there.
- Excellent! ATTACK!!!
And with a roar, we rushed in the front ranks to take with our chests those shots that belonged to the fighters with grenades. No one asked why it was decided to throw the infantry at the tanks without even hand grenade launchers or anything more powerful.
Heavy bolters began to rattle, bombs, mines and shells began to explode, a terrible wind arose, which chaotically drove our and the enemy's smoke screens. The earth trembled and the cannonade sang its deadly tune, with which the cries of agony and flashes of lasguns merged, forming everything into an ugly symphony of war, where death could seem to anyone like redemption and liberation from the worldly hell.
One after another, the soldiers fell, mown down by machine guns, choking in their own blood. The luckiest could count on the most that they would not fall face down in the mud, and the rest continued to run and fire on the move, suppressing the enemy, who was still trying to attack us and because of this did not have time to prepare a line of full-fledged defense. Many enemies fired at us from personal trenches, but the tanks, the bastards, managed to bury.
- FORWARD!!! FOLLOW ME!!! - as expected, our commander ran in the front ranks, ready to lay down his life so that the five key cadets could reach their goal.
The commander was also a cadet, so young, not even knowing the warmth of a girl, he was taller than any of the people at that moment. He stood even taller than death itself, fearlessly proudly towering over the battlefield and attracting an incredible amount of attention to himself. Right before my eyes, a shot from a heavy bolter literally blew his head off, tearing even his helmet.
- FORWARD!!! - another cadet immediately burst into a scream, understanding the plan of the fallen commander: the scream of the silent Krieg men attracted the attention of the best, making the one screaming the target.
I wanted to scream too, but at that moment the cadet who screamed first after the commander, rushed ahead of me, apparently having discovered a second wind. He rushed forward like lightning, and then one of the shells exploded right under his feet, throwing me onto my back with a shock wave. With a wheeze, I tried to get up, feeling something warm spreading over me. The bulletproof vest withstood the shrapnel, but I couldn't get up right away. I was seriously stunned and probably broken, although I didn't feel any pain at all yet.
At that moment I realized that I was a lucky guy. After all, I fell on my back, and not face down in the mud. It's a pity that the sky was not visible. Krieg was a dead world in general, and the industry was constantly working, and of course, all the excess was thrown to the surface. Plus, active military operations also made the sky even blacker. However, in some places, strange glimmers could be seen.
I felt something strange as I lay on my back and looked up at the sky, trying to discern the countless stars beyond the darkness. Suddenly, something stirred in my soul, began to squeal and get worried. It was the Bird, which suddenly began to become active. This was good news, because I had already gotten used to it, but on the other hand... Krieg hated everything connected with the warp. As soon as they found out about my psychic activity, I would be instantly disposed of. There were no combat psykers here and there would be none, it was also impossible to agree on something like this, no one on Krieg would even listen to such a thing, let alone discuss it.
- Why are you so worried?
"This is a nightmare! A nightmare!" her voice rang out inside me, and then she immediately tried to hide and close herself off, as if she was afraid of being discovered.
Was she afraid of this world? Although I myself felt something strange with every fiber of my being. Something was happening... grandiose and large-scale, which every inhabitant of the galaxy now felt. It was truly a nightmare, and something like this had not happened for more than ten thousand years. An echo of it was felt even by me, here, tens of thousands of light years from the place of this event, from what in an instant brought the entire Imperium to its knees, bringing it even closer to its final fall than it had been during the Horus Heresy.
A true nightmare has happened and the darkness has thickened even in the eternal darkness of the distant future, where there is nothing left but endless war.
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