KABOOOM!
With a deafening blast that tore at my eardrums, the ash-grey sky above the trench flashed. The dented tin roof over our heads screeched as it was blown away, and heaps of wet earth and unidentifiable fragments poured down from every direction like a waterfall.
"Heads down! Bury your faces, you idiots!"
Sergeant Yakov, the squad leader of Second Squad, was shouting, though his voice sounded distant beneath the artillery fire. Without hesitation, I drove my head into the sludgy mud at my feet. It was the rat-like survival instinct I had learned through experience whenever an unexpected explosion struck the lower levels of the hive city.
Rumble, rumble, rumble!
The continuous barrage mercilessly trampled the entire trench line. Clods of cold mud mixed with sewage filled my mouth and nose. Through gaps in my gas mask filter came the fishy scent of dirt, the smell of sulphur, and something like a solid lump of meat falling onto my face amid the debris. There was no time to wipe it away. Every time a shockwave shook the ground, twisting pain surged through my guts.
"Aaaagh! My leg! My leg!"
A desperate scream burst out beside me. It was Dorn, the rookie from the agricultural world.
Dorn had his head buried against the trench wall, kicking his legs wildly in terror. His legs were unharmed. It was only that the torn-off limb of a veteran from the next trench bay, blown away wholesale, had landed across his thigh. Seeing that bloody lump of flesh, Dorn thought his own leg had been blown off and began howling.
"Shut it, you bloody idiot!"
Talia hauled herself up, covered in mud, and roughly shoved the severed arm off Dorn’s thigh. Then she mercilessly struck his cheek with the hilt of her bayonet.
Smack!
"You trying to give the enemy artillery our coordinates by screaming? Shut up and chew mud!"
At Talia’s cold rebuke, Dorn recoiled, spitting saliva mixed with blood and mud. His eyes had already lost their sanity. The hand clutching his rosary was trembling violently.
Hissss...
Thick smoke and toxic gas began settling over the shell impacts. The temperature inside the trench briefly rose from the heat of the bombardment, only to be swallowed again by the cold night air and the dampness of the mud, turning into a lethal chill.
"Rookie, check whether there’s dirt in your lasgun."
Lazar shook himself free of the collapsed earth and rose, taking a firing stance with his dented lasgun. His whole body was so caked in mud that he was almost unrecognizable.
I immediately checked the muzzle of the lasgun clutched to my chest. Debris and soil had clumped around the barrel’s cell cover. With the practiced hands I had developed handling tools in the hive factories, I tore a strip from my clothes and quickly wiped the muzzle nozzle clean. Only when a bluish glow came on in the power indicator of the charge pack did I let out a small breath.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The artillery fire gradually receded. It was the sign that the enemy had finished the main bombardment meant to annihilate our position and was reorganizing its lines. A deathly silence hung over the trench, but it was not peace.
"The barrage is over! Everyone to firing positions! Watch No Man’s Land!"
At Sergeant Yakov’s shout, the soldiers buried beneath the piles of dirt crawled out one by one. The heating whine of lasgun power units tore through the damp air, filling the trench with a high-pitched hummm from all directions.
I braced my lasgun on the trench lip and stared into the front, thick with bombardment smoke.
Desolate No Man’s Land. Every crater gouged out by the shells had become a muddy pool of blood, and from the dense fog and smoke came the dull tread of boots and grotesque battle cries.
Hissss...
Behind the thick smoke, dozens—hundreds—of red gleaming eyes and grotesquely dented helmets emerged. Rebels who had raised arms against the Emperor’s Imperium, the mob that had been raining shells on this trench line for days.
"They’re coming! Second Squad, aim!"
At Sergeant Yakov’s shout, I pressed my eye against the gun sight.
The rebels visible through the sight were a vision of hell. They wore Imperial uniforms like rags, their faces marked with grotesque symbols as they slogged through the mud. They too could not run properly with mud swallowing them to the ankles, but their madness-filled eyes kept advancing through the sucking mire.
"Fire!"
KABOOM! Bang!
Red beams from the lasguns erupted all at once, cutting through the night sky and the smoke. Whenever a laser punched through a rebel’s chest or head, screams broke out amid the smell of burning flesh.
I pulled the trigger too. Pew! Pew! The familiar vibration travelled up through my fingertips. The sensation I had drilled into myself by the manual at the hive city firing range controlled the movement of my fingers. The moment an enemy in my sights fell, I swung the muzzle toward the next target. There was no emotion in it. Just an utterly mechanical repetition, like the turning of factory gears.
"The barrel switch is overheating! Change charge packs!"
Beside me, Brix shouted as he replaced the charge pack of his heavy weapon.
But there were too many enemies. Breaking through a section of trench line destroyed by the barrage, one rebel came leaping onto the trench lip where I stood.
"Die, you Imperial dogs—!"
The rebel charged with a dented dagger, bloody in his hand. My eyes widened for an instant. He was too close for me to raise my lasgun.
Crunch!
Before I could react, a heavy bayonet flying in from the side pierced deep into the back of the rebel’s neck. It was Talia. Without so much as blinking, she kicked the rebel into the mud at the bottom of the trench, then casually wiped the blood from her bayonet against the sole of her boot.
"Don’t just stand there blankly, hive rookie. Swing that muzzle around!"
Talia’s harsh voice snapped me back to my senses, and I immediately shoved myself back against the trench lip.
The rebels’ first charge was gradually faltering, unable to overcome the concentrated lasgun fire and the disadvantageous terrain around the trench line. No Man’s Land was filled only with the smell of flesh scorched by lasers and the sound of steadily mounting corpses sinking into the mud.
"They’re retreating! They’re pulling back!"
Cheers erupted from somewhere, but I did not lower my gun.
Only after firing a few more red laser shots into the backs of the retreating enemy did I finally let out a ragged breath. The air entering through my gas mask filter was hot, and my fingers were spasming from gripping the trigger too hard.
When I looked down, the corpse of the rebel Talia had brought down was slowly sinking into the cold mud of the trench floor, as though sediment settling to the bottom. An enemy whose name and face I did not know. Yet the only thing that sent a cold shiver down my spine was the brutal certainty that before long, I too would be buried beneath the mud like that.
"See? Told you I was right."
Lazar cooled his lasgun and put his dented cigarette back between his lips.
"This mud remembers nothing. Not the enemy, and not us."
Cold raindrops began to fall once more over the trench line, now completely swallowed by darkness. The first engagement was over, but the trench war for survival had only just begun.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register