06:00.
The silence shattered like powder beneath a single enemy flare fired into the ash-gray sky belching sulphur gas.
Whoosh—! Fwoooosh—!
A red flare burned overhead, dyeing all of No Man's Land in a grotesque blood-red hue. Then, a sharp shriek splitting the sky descended over the trenches.
Whiiiii—! Boom! Kaboom!
The enemy's imprecise but overwhelming barrage began pouring down upon our lines. A shell struck just in front of the trench lip and exploded, showering black mud and fragments of rotting corpses from dozens of metres high over our heads like a waterfall.
"Brace for impact! Heads down!"
Sergeant Yakov's shout was barely audible beneath the explosions.
I pressed down on my helmet and flattened myself against the trench floor. Whenever the shockwave trampled over my back, my limbs twisted and my brain rattled. Clods of earth struck my gas mask lenses, blotting out my vision, while acrid propellant smoke and grit crunched between my teeth. A muffled ringing buzzed in my ears, roaring as if it would rupture my eardrums.
Rumble...
Just as the hellish barrage seemed to ease, grotesque howls from hundreds of people and the grinding roar of heavy machinery tracks churning mud rolled in from beyond the fog.
"The barrage is over! Everyone to firing positions! Up!"
I forced my dazed mind awake and hurled myself up to the trench lip.
My fingertips were still spasming with fatigue and chills, but the instinct to survive forced my stiffened fingers to move. I roughly wiped the mud off my gas mask lenses with my uniform sleeve, and the slaughterhouse unfolding in the fog came into view.
What came charging through the ash-gray fog was not merely an army.
Hundreds of rebel cultists in tattered uniforms, raising thorn-studded banners, were running madly across the corpse-strewn fields of No Man's Land. Behind them, modified trucks and armored carriers crudely welded together from steel plates advanced, belching black smoke.
"Lasguns, open fire! Don't let them get close to the trench lip!"
Shh-shh-shh-shh—!
Blue and red lasgun beams poured into the fog in unison from the entire trench line.
I too pressed my bayonet-fixed lasgun against the trench lip and pulled the trigger. Switched from single-shot to full-auto, the lasgun's power cell hummed as it emitted searing heat.
One beam punched straight through the chest of a rebel charging at the very front. Red blood and smoke rose from the hole in his chest as he toppled backward into the mud. But they did not care about death. When the man in front fell, the man behind trampled over his body and kept coming.
"Brix! Aim for the armored carrier! Stop their transports!"
"I know, damn it!"
From the heavy weapons position beside us, Brix shouted as he hammered armor-piercing rounds from his massive weapon into the front steel plate of an enemy modified armored carrier.
Kaboom, boom, boom—!
Orange tracers from the heavy weapon tore through the fog and struck the armored carrier's engine compartment dead on. Its engine exploded, its tracks snapped, and the vehicle rolled over with a deafening crash. Yet from behind the wreckage, dozens of enemies came charging in a swarm toward the trench lip.
The air filled with the acrid stench of ozone and propellant smoke.
The barrel of my lasgun began glowing red from overheating. I heard the power cell run dry, but I did not stop firing as I frantically slammed in the bloodstained magazine I had taken from Dorn's belongings. Fatigue and drowsiness had completely evaporated from my head. All that remained was a shell pulling the trigger in order to live.
Then, a terrible explosion and screams erupted from the trench line in the Third Squad sector right beside us.
Boom—!
"The trench has been breached! They've broken through the Third Squad sector!"
I saw the enemy vanguard, armed with grenades and spiked clubs, vault over Third Squad's trench lip and leap inside. Blood and chunks of flesh sprayed down the passageway, and chilling screams began rushing toward us through the narrow trench corridor.
Sergeant Yakov gripped his bayonet-fixed lasgun and shouted until his throat tore.
"Second Squad, cease fire! Defend the flank! Prepare for close combat in the trench!"
"Hold the Third Squad sector! Cut down every one of them that comes in!"
With Sergeant Yakov's shout, terrible screams flooded in from beyond the wet, twisting trench corridor, carrying the smell of blood.
The rebel cultists who had broken into the Third Squad sector began storming along the trench passage, swinging maces and rusted daggers. The narrow, cold mud trench instantly became a slaughterhouse where men trampled one another's blood and flesh.
"Charge—!"
One enemy vanguard trooper with crude barbed wire wrapped around his head charged at me with a hair-raising howl. A blunt spiked club was clenched in his blood-caked hand.
Slash—!
The instant he forced his way through the narrow trench walls and swung his club, I sharply ducked my head aside with the ingrained instinct of someone who had navigated the cramped corners around gas pipes in the hive city's factory district.
Clang—!
The spiked club savagely splintered a trench support post right beside my shoulder.
"Die, Imperial dog!"
His spit and sulphur-reeking breath pressed close against my gas mask lenses. Without hesitation, I drove the bayonet blade fixed to my muzzle deep upward beneath his jaw.
Thrust—!
"Ghk...!"
The black blade pierced through his tough leather uniform and bone, punching through the back of his neck. Thick, lukewarm blood sprayed out, staining my gas mask lenses red. His eyes rolled upward as he trembled like an aspen.
I planted my boot firmly on his body, impaled on the blade, and violently yanked my lasgun free.
Riiip—!
The blood-soaked corpse fell heavily into the mud on the trench floor. But there was no time to rest. Two more enemies were charging in right behind it.
"Ivan, move aside!"
Brix's thunderous shout burst out behind me. The instant I hurriedly pressed myself flat against the trench wall, Brix swung the stock of his massive lascannon straight into the first enemy's head.
Crunch—!
The enemy's head grotesquely caved in along with his steel helmet, splattering brains across the wall. As the next man faltered, Talia's bayonet came flying out from the side like a sound and slid between the joints of his neck.
Slash!
"Aaargh!"
As the enemies vomited blood and collapsed, Lazar's precise shots followed.
Shh-shh! Shh-shh!
Blue lasgun beams punched cleanly through the chests and foreheads of enemies trying to round the trench corner. Smoke and screams filled the trench interior like hell itself.
How much time had passed? I could not tell whether it had been minutes or hours. My breathing beyond the gas mask had grown harsh like an animal's panting, and the overpowering stench of blood and propellant smoke clung thickly to my hands.
"They've stopped...! They're falling back!"
At some point, the howls and footsteps beyond the trench lip began to fade away. The enemy vanguard that had infiltrated the trench line had been wiped out, and Imperial artillery began raining down vertical barrages again behind the retreating enemies in No Man's Land.
Boom! Kaboom—!
Silence fell over everything once more.
At my feet, severed corpses and entrails, so mangled that friend and foe could not be distinguished, sloshed together with filthy water. As the heat of my lasgun slowly faded, the sharp smell of ozone rose from it.
Still gripping my lasgun's stock, I leaned as if collapsing against the blood-smeared trench wall and slowly sank down. Each ragged breath I exhaled through the gas mask filter drove the metallic reek of blood and propellant deep into my lungs.
I had survived. I had lived through this assault too.
But there was no joy in surviving. The eyes of an unnamed rebel, crushed to death beside my knee, stared silently at the ash-gray sky.
The emptiness of knowing that I too would soon look like that pressed down on me along with the terrible fatigue seizing my entire body. My turn to die had merely been pushed back a little.
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